Ficciones is full of mockings of intellectualism. I Particularly like the critique on the critical philosophical work of Menard's Quixote. Where Menard, the subject of the story, carefully writes parts of a novel that is word-for-word a copy of Cervante's Quixote, but shaped by Menard's intellectual efforts, one is to draw the opposite appreciations than from the one written by Cervantes.
His stories are such a strange read. The plot, the characters, the mentions, all feel almost secondary to the feeling they evoke.
Menard's Quixote is also one of my favorites. I feel it illustrates almost in a mean way the futility and arrogance of analyzing a work through its author's life and intention. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if this kind of literary analysis was still popular in Borges' time and place, but in France up to the early 20th century, an influential critic called Sainte-Beuve was claiming with great success that any work could be entirely (and scientifically) analyzed and elucidated by interviewing the author's friends, partners, by sniffing out their secret habits and what not -- and I assume Borges must've been aware of it, having been educated in early 20th century French-speaking Switzerland. If I had another life I'd probably do another PhD thesis on Borges vs Sainte-Beuve.
Fun fact: Marcel Proust was so mad at Sainte-Beuve that it got him out of his writer's block; In Search of Lost Time is an anti-Sainte-Beuve essay that got out of hand.
Fascinating. Borges is not shy in mentioning his admirations, and what he was exposed to. I like that he leaves breadcrumbs, or whole loaves, pointing to what he likes. It's an interesting way to thread into literature.
I envy a bit those , who, like you, had such exposures. It's such a fascinating world, which I used to scoff at when I was younger. But it's a healthy envy. I feel happy for those who choose to developed such capacities, and it inspires me to try to develop them for myself.
I remember a PostSecret from many years ago that was a picture of the title plate of Ficciones, and the "secret" was somebody saying they wished that they could have just one night in front of a fire with a bottle of malt whiskey and the person who introduced them to that work. I had never read Borges before, but I liked that sort of a feeling a book could create, so I trudged to the bookshop and found a copy, and then settled into a corner of a cosy pub (I live in England), not far from a fire and a golden retriever, with a pint of ale and settled in.
Changed my life, when it comes to literature.
The feelings you get from that work are hard to describe, but unique and engaging and marvellous. But when you step back and look at it from a critical reading, it's all a bit odd and silly and mocking.
There is no writer I want in my pocket more than Borges though, particularly when it's dark and cold outside and the fire is burning, and a friend who also appreciates him is nearby to discuss.
Their copilot stuff is such a mess. Over promising, dressed with marketing slop on top of an under-performing product.
However; their azure offerings are somewhat decent. AI Search is getting quite decent, access to Open AI models served through foundry is quite the differentiator (although the rate limits are an issue), their reference architectures are very helpful and their ancillary services, like document intelligence integrate well.
I'm a bit worried that their marketing dept has gotten their crappifying and obfuscating eyes set on those services though, given the recent rebranding of Foundry and what not, but the underlying services are decent.
See WinUI after Project Reunion announcement 5 years ago, unfortunately fits exactly the same description, and we are way past COVID to use that as an excuse.
Dmitry is a mad genius. He has been doing stuff like this for 20 years, he was fixing palm’s issues for years. All his hardware projects are phenomenal, and so is his writing.
I've found myself reading a bit of the rePalm posts for the last few night. Funny thing is that I find myself to have read and re-read that stuff for hours now, a bit at a time, re-reading some of the most interesting bits, and doing cursory research on the (many) things that are over my head.
That is hours reading. D must have spent so much more time writing, and doing it so very clearly and in such an organized, and even entertaining way.
And then there is the time figuring this crap out and making it work. I just... D is on league of his own, he is like a one-man hardware company. Having that level of skill must be so gratifying. He is a virtuoso of his craft.
Dude casually mentions stuff like... (paraphrasing) Palm OS expect this and that behavior that most kernels don't implement. So I wrote my own.
It has a rather poor max resolution. Higher resolution images get tiled up to a point. 512 x 512, I think is the max tile size, 2048 x 2048 the max canvas.
I would think so too. There is something else going though. It a system that relies partly on trust. A sort of moral asset with herd effects. It’s a system that can tolerate a certain amount of gaming, but when the threshold is surpassed, it becomes a failed system. It has to change, to the detriment of the justly entitled.
And that is the sad part, when that unstated assumption, that one may not lie, is broken past a threshold, it increases the transaction cost for everyone.
Some people take find their life meaning through craft and work. When that craft is suddenly less scarce, less special, so does that craft-tied meaning.
I wonder if these feelings are what scribes and amanuenses felt when the printing press arrived.
I do enjoy programming, I like my job and take pride on it, but I actively try for it not to be the life-mean giving activity. I'm a just mercenary of my trade.
The craft isn't any less scarce. If anything, only more. The craft of building wooden furniture is just as scarce as ever, despite the existence of Ikea.
Which is the only woodworkers that survive are the ones with enough customers willing to pay premium prices for furniture, or lucky to live in countries where Ikea like shops aren't yet a thing.
They are also the people who are able to see the most clearly how subpar generative-AI output is. When you can't find a single spot without AI slop to rest your eyes on and see it get so much praise, it's natural to take it as a direct insult to your work.
I mean, I would still hate to be replaced by some chat bot (without being fairly compensated because, societally, it's kind of a dick move for every company to just fire thousands of people and then nobody can find a job elsewhere), but I wouldn't be as mad if the damn tools actually worked. They don't. It's one thing to be laid off, it's another to be laid off, ostensibly, to be replaced by some tool that isn't even actually thinking or reasoning, just crapping out garbage.
And I will not be replying to anyone who trots out their personal AI success story. I'm not interested.
The tech works well enough to function as an excuse for massive layoffs. When all that is over, companies can start hiring again. Probably with a preference for employees that can demonstrate affinity with the new tools.
His stories are such a strange read. The plot, the characters, the mentions, all feel almost secondary to the feeling they evoke.
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