All writing is autobiography. Everything that you write, including criticism and fiction, writes you as you write it

 --- J.M. Coetzee, in an interview with David Attwell, Doubling the Point (1994), quoted by Piet Croucamp in Die subversiewe J.M. Coetzee + niemandsland + die veldsoirée in Nxuba, Binne+Land, May 2026

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Ek stel in elk geval nié werklik belang om my eie storie te skryf nie. "All writing is autobiography. Everything that you write, including criticism and fiction, writes you as you write it," sê Coetzee aan Attwell. Wanneer jy die storie van jou lewe vertel, verlaat jy jou op ’n reservoir van herinneringe, "selecting those bits of narrative that get to a plausible truth". Is daar dan geen niemandsland tussen ’n geleefde ervaring en fiksie nie?

In Negotiating with the Dead (2002) beweer Margaret Atwood met ’n ongeoorloofde veralgemening: "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Alexander Strachan is soort van met haar eens. Ek onthou hy het lank gelede iewers gesê die hele skryfproses is minder romanties as wat die meeste mense sal wil glo; " ... eintlik sit jy maar op jou alie en werk jou gat af". Dalk haal ek hom ook verkeerd aan; die punt is egter weer eens geldig, dog ontmoedigend. Dalk praat hulle nie van dieselfde "difficult" nie. 

 

As subject, use either a trip or the arrival of a stranger (some disruption of order, the usual novel beginning)

 --- John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, quoted by Piet Croucamp in Die subversiewe J.M. Coetzee + niemandsland + die veldsoirée in Nxuba, Binne+Land, May 2026

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Die Amerikaanse romanskrywer John Gardner, in sy boek The Art of Fiction, bepeins dieselfde vrae as waaroor ek dit hier het en kom tot die slotsom dat alle intriges tot twee argetipes gereduseer kan word: "As subject, use either a trip or the arrival of a stranger (some disruption of order, the usual novel beginning)." In een of ander volksmond is dié wenk later aan Leo Tolstoy toegeskryf en herverpak tot: "All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town."

[Stanford students] arrive with extraordinary academic preparation but very little practice sitting with discomfort and engaging respectfully across difference

--- Shashank V. Joshi, Stanford, senior associate vice provost for academic well-being in the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, quoted in Faculty Senate votes to extend COLLEGE, Stanford Report, May 2026

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. . . Stanford students are “brilliant, but they are also brittle at times.”

“They arrive with extraordinary academic preparation but very little practice sitting with discomfort and engaging respectfully across difference,” Joshi explained. “COLLEGE 101: Why College? is not a soft course for our students. The well-being framework that we start with in that first quarter is a clinical intervention at scale, in my opinion. It gives students language, community, and tools before the weight of Stanford fully lands on them.”

If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs

 --- hikikomorphism on Bluesky

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If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs. Take "I have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me". Sure. Reasonable use case. 

"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.

AI is our generation's radium

 --- Nick Pettigrew on Bluesky via New Scientist's Feedback column, 25 Feb 2025

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I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

Two different characters are presented to our emulation; the one, of proud ambition and ostentatious avidity; the other, of humble modesty and equitable justice

 --- Adam Smith, from Paragraph I.III.29 in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, quoted by Russ Roberts in the EconTalk podcast, Adam Smith's Warning About Wealth, Fame, and Status (with Ross Levine), at 52:07 in 

To deserve, to acquire, and to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great objects of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are presented to us, equally leading to the attainment of this so much desired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice of virtue; the other, by the acquisition of wealth and greatness. Two different characters are presented to our emulation; the one, of proud ambition and ostentatious avidity; the other, of humble modesty and equitable justice. Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour; the one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline: the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other, attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly, a select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness.