I laughed way too hard at this. Also, I can't even read some of these statements with a straight face because all the project and company names sound completely ridiculous when placed in serious sentences, it's like reading about embezzlement charges for Sesame Street characters.
Hah, really? He's a treasure, met him a few times at poetry readings and such. A quick search isn't bringing anything up but google has been failing me a lot lately. Or I'm failing at google a lot lately.
Adafruit is maybe an all time amazing success story built on giving more of a shit than anyone else. There is a direct through line from reading MAKE in high school through programming the 8 LED POV thing through the rest of my career. Limor doesn't answer a forum question on a Sunday morning in like 2008 and I don't make my mortgage payment this month and my son gets store brand formula. I wish you every success professionally and in this new chapter with your tiny miracle, and I hope for an amicable resolution to this whole Sparkfun thing.
Weird that your STT doesn't handle capitals, but that's a good excuse. Sounds like you're having a challenging day, I hope my snarky joke wasn't too annoying.
As someone who hung out on IRC way back in the 1990s (and internet-knew Limor from Adafruit back before her handle was Ladyada) I associate this writing style with the culture of a lot of the hacker-related IRC channels I used to hang out in back then.
Some of the same people from that era did in fact turn out to be tech founders and maybe that's how it got carried over into the Twitter-verse, but it predates that.
Corroborating. It goes way back to the early 90s IRC and MUD cultures, from which many of us sprung. Limor came to the scene a bit later, but the culture was well-established.
Most of us would code shift when writing in other milieux, some weaned ourselves off the habit when our work started interfacing with nonreceptive readers, and a few retained the affectation to make a statement (or an anti-statement!).
It's amusing to see the style resurface in a new generation though. I guess it's no more odd than when 20 year olds unknowingly emulate the dress and mannerisms from when their parents were young. We just smile and recall the age when we thought we were being different too. :)
Not much later, I remember her hanging out in #hack in the '92-93 timeframe (first as lem0n then later as ladyada).
She was like the "kid" of the channel regulars (which is an extremely relative designation because there were a lot of teenagers just a couple years older than her).
I also remember her going to one of the 2600 meetings at the CambridgeSide Galleria that I went to with morgen and wil wheaton that must have been either in 1993 or very early 1994 (it was definitely prior to the first HOPE in 94). IIRC Limor was being chaperoned by RogueAgent and theora/Sarah Gordon.
Sounds right. I was only an occasional attendee at the Galleria, but the timeline makes sense.
H.O.P.E. brings back memories though -- I was very uncertain that that Poland Springs jug would contain the explosives taped to the Clipper chip. I remember wishing I was sitting several rows further back for that moment. :)
It goes back before that. There were well known Usenet folks who adhered to the style. The 1970s-and-earlier Arpanet was before my time, but I'm sure it existed then too ;).
You know, I was trying to remember if anyone from Usenet did similarly, but I couldn't think of anyone.
I was a bit post-Great Renaming into well post-Eternal September. And we may have followed different groups.
The style arises spontaneously in isolated individuals and groups of course (at least since e. e. cummings!), but it was pervasive-to-universal on IRC and MUDs.
I do wonder how it trickled into there though. The most boring answer is probably the correct one. it was slightly easier to type and kids are naturally flexible.
I rarely capitalise, since i use punctuation and the need for capitals to break up the flow of barely legible cursive is not there.
what's the point? other than social compliance. these things need purpose to live.
london is still London, even without the capital. i am still me, even if I'm not overstating my own self-importance. this sentence still had a clear beginning, even if i didn't highlight it with a T.
Your other posts have capital letters for technical abbreviations and "Sparkfun", but not for "I" and the first letter of sentences.
Sorry, from a bystander this looks like a straight-up lie, and why lie about such a small thing? It brings into question the truth of your other statements. Just say you like the style if that's the truth.
some are already words/abbreivations that are in my word list and some are me typing over later when i can, and some is a cut/paste if limor has something for me to add or does an edit as she looks at things. you can see my writings on the adafruit blog have caps, commenting on forums or hackersnews quickly, there will be some things someone does not like. we were at the doc with our 2 month old during this ... https://x.com/ptorrone/status/2011509017814659095
Let me inform you (and anyone else for that matter) that one observer has observed 2 samples of writing today, yours and his, and has formed 2 impressions of the writers, and that yours is not the more favorable. Do with this information what you will.
It is clearly a deliberate choice to send the signal of conforming to a particular type of non-conformance. It’s a costly signal because most people will see it as having the emotional maturity of a child, it signals to others that given their social status they can afford that self imposed handicap.
years and years and years of ptorrone's posts aren't capitalized, though. it's not like they suddenly decided today, for the purposes of this post, to change their writing style.
in any case, i prefer to decide whether someone has the "emotional maturity of a child" based on what they say, not whether they push their shift key.
I heard that altman does it. I don't care about him enough to check though. More silly gimmicks like holmes talking in a mans voice or jobs wearing the same turtle neck
How it's perceived is no doubt in the eye of the beholder. I can totally see how some people would associate this writing style with children, and so associate it with "vulnerable".
I have no idea what any of this thread is about, but I'm sure the thing that I'm going to remember next time I need to buy something from one of these two is that one of them can be bothered to use capital letters, so I'll use them.
This whole thread is utterly ridiculous. I can't take anyone seriously who is sitting here saying they can't take someone else seriously over this, or even saying anything at all about it as though it were the tiniest bit significant.
It's like Vance on Zelensky's clothes. Exhibiting high ignorance and triviality while in the very act of presuming to accuse someone else of being unserious.
I laughed way too hard at this. Also, I can't even read some of these statements with a straight face because all the project and company names sound completely ridiculous when placed in serious sentences, it's like reading about embezzlement charges for Sesame Street characters.
I needed a good laugh today and "reading about embezzlement charges for Sesame Street characters" gave me it, so: thanks!
Levar Burton did get into some hot water over the Reading Rainbow app.
Hah, really? He's a treasure, met him a few times at poetry readings and such. A quick search isn't bringing anything up but google has been failing me a lot lately. Or I'm failing at google a lot lately.
Or Google is failing you lately. Seems like it's not a recent event, which Google is also REALLY bad at these days.
https://current.org/2016/03/wned-and-rrkidz-trade-lawsuits-o...
speech to text, with a newborn, replying to these and feeding her. i cannot purchase shift keys if they are on sparkfun, yes.
Adafruit is maybe an all time amazing success story built on giving more of a shit than anyone else. There is a direct through line from reading MAKE in high school through programming the 8 LED POV thing through the rest of my career. Limor doesn't answer a forum question on a Sunday morning in like 2008 and I don't make my mortgage payment this month and my son gets store brand formula. I wish you every success professionally and in this new chapter with your tiny miracle, and I hope for an amicable resolution to this whole Sparkfun thing.
Weird that your STT doesn't handle capitals, but that's a good excuse. Sounds like you're having a challenging day, I hope my snarky joke wasn't too annoying.
The problem is not STT or feeding the baby. All his emails lack capitalization. E.g: https://gist.github.com/NPoole/d9aab9dfa2a18f4141039f7ce3505...
> I hope my snarky joke wasn't too annoying
Don't worry, he always writes like this.
I think it's a trend among tech founders, I've seen some on Twitter doing it, and then a bunch of hanger-ons copying the behavior.
I think it goes back a lot further than Twitter.
As someone who hung out on IRC way back in the 1990s (and internet-knew Limor from Adafruit back before her handle was Ladyada) I associate this writing style with the culture of a lot of the hacker-related IRC channels I used to hang out in back then.
Some of the same people from that era did in fact turn out to be tech founders and maybe that's how it got carried over into the Twitter-verse, but it predates that.
Corroborating. It goes way back to the early 90s IRC and MUD cultures, from which many of us sprung. Limor came to the scene a bit later, but the culture was well-established.
Most of us would code shift when writing in other milieux, some weaned ourselves off the habit when our work started interfacing with nonreceptive readers, and a few retained the affectation to make a statement (or an anti-statement!).
It's amusing to see the style resurface in a new generation though. I guess it's no more odd than when 20 year olds unknowingly emulate the dress and mannerisms from when their parents were young. We just smile and recall the age when we thought we were being different too. :)
> Limor came to the scene a bit later
Not much later, I remember her hanging out in #hack in the '92-93 timeframe (first as lem0n then later as ladyada).
She was like the "kid" of the channel regulars (which is an extremely relative designation because there were a lot of teenagers just a couple years older than her).
I also remember her going to one of the 2600 meetings at the CambridgeSide Galleria that I went to with morgen and wil wheaton that must have been either in 1993 or very early 1994 (it was definitely prior to the first HOPE in 94). IIRC Limor was being chaperoned by RogueAgent and theora/Sarah Gordon.
Sounds right. I was only an occasional attendee at the Galleria, but the timeline makes sense.
H.O.P.E. brings back memories though -- I was very uncertain that that Poland Springs jug would contain the explosives taped to the Clipper chip. I remember wishing I was sitting several rows further back for that moment. :)
> early 90s IRC and MUD cultures
It goes back before that. There were well known Usenet folks who adhered to the style. The 1970s-and-earlier Arpanet was before my time, but I'm sure it existed then too ;).
You know, I was trying to remember if anyone from Usenet did similarly, but I couldn't think of anyone.
I was a bit post-Great Renaming into well post-Eternal September. And we may have followed different groups.
The style arises spontaneously in isolated individuals and groups of course (at least since e. e. cummings!), but it was pervasive-to-universal on IRC and MUDs.
I do wonder how it trickled into there though. The most boring answer is probably the correct one. it was slightly easier to type and kids are naturally flexible.
I wrote in lower case on Usenet before the renaming.
So there's one.
I think I did too, but it may have varied by newsgroup, and I wasn't particularly prolific.
I'm not sure whether I'm brave enough to search the archives for my own writing. :)
You whippersnappers!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. It’s like watching a discussion about who invented orcs, Terry Brooks or Terry Pratchett.
I don't mean to imply invention, just community ubiquity.
Obviously e.e. is the o.g. :)
i'm 50+
I rarely capitalise, since i use punctuation and the need for capitals to break up the flow of barely legible cursive is not there.
what's the point? other than social compliance. these things need purpose to live.
london is still London, even without the capital. i am still me, even if I'm not overstating my own self-importance. this sentence still had a clear beginning, even if i didn't highlight it with a T.
capitals are a leftover of cursive.
Explanation: https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
You’re right. Sam Altman does this and others repeat it like people used to wear black turtlenecks.
Not just tech founders. Jeffrey Epstein writing is just atrocious. Like how does anyone habitually use a commas ,, like this?
I've heard it referred to as a "flex," basically doing something stupid to rub it in that you can get away with it.
I took that as an indicator that the person was using an on-screen phone keyboard.
"Dictated but not read"
Congratulations! (assuming you're the parent)
If not, congratulations on the heist.
Perhaps a foot pedal? Maybe Adafruit could make one.
What?
Your other posts have capital letters for technical abbreviations and "Sparkfun", but not for "I" and the first letter of sentences.
Sorry, from a bystander this looks like a straight-up lie, and why lie about such a small thing? It brings into question the truth of your other statements. Just say you like the style if that's the truth.
some are already words/abbreivations that are in my word list and some are me typing over later when i can, and some is a cut/paste if limor has something for me to add or does an edit as she looks at things. you can see my writings on the adafruit blog have caps, commenting on forums or hackersnews quickly, there will be some things someone does not like. we were at the doc with our 2 month old during this ... https://x.com/ptorrone/status/2011509017814659095
Congrats! It's insane to me that you'd have to defend any of this. I hope the visit went well.
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Let me inform you (and anyone else for that matter) that one observer has observed 2 samples of writing today, yours and his, and has formed 2 impressions of the writers, and that yours is not the more favorable. Do with this information what you will.
valuing style over substance is folly.
It is clearly a deliberate choice to send the signal of conforming to a particular type of non-conformance. It’s a costly signal because most people will see it as having the emotional maturity of a child, it signals to others that given their social status they can afford that self imposed handicap.
It's rarely the mature who talk about maturity.
years and years and years of ptorrone's posts aren't capitalized, though. it's not like they suddenly decided today, for the purposes of this post, to change their writing style.
in any case, i prefer to decide whether someone has the "emotional maturity of a child" based on what they say, not whether they push their shift key.
Perhaps but in this case the style does make it harder to read the substance.
*poorly written prose
Typing in all lowercase makes you look more vulnerable, it's a pretty common rhetorical tactic in PR.
I had never noticed this before. Can you point at any examples?
I have long noticed high profile people going to court with some kind of cast on, though.
I heard that altman does it. I don't care about him enough to check though. More silly gimmicks like holmes talking in a mans voice or jobs wearing the same turtle neck
Agree, it makes it seem like the individual is "one of us" and that what they're saying is a little more raw/genuine.
"They're being mean to me." vs "theyre being mean to me".
Uh, no, it makes you look careless and unprofessional.
How it's perceived is no doubt in the eye of the beholder. I can totally see how some people would associate this writing style with children, and so associate it with "vulnerable".
I have no idea what any of this thread is about, but I'm sure the thing that I'm going to remember next time I need to buy something from one of these two is that one of them can be bothered to use capital letters, so I'll use them.
some of us are anti-capitalist
I was going to ask more about your philosophy, but after collapsing all of the other replies, I got to see what you were replying to.
I fear the page formatting caused an entirely respectable joke to be lost to many people
This whole thread is utterly ridiculous. I can't take anyone seriously who is sitting here saying they can't take someone else seriously over this, or even saying anything at all about it as though it were the tiniest bit significant.
It's like Vance on Zelensky's clothes. Exhibiting high ignorance and triviality while in the very act of presuming to accuse someone else of being unserious.