4 ms·
It would have been really great to end the blog post mid-sentence.
by kylecazar 11mo ago
It would have been really great to end the blog post mid-sentence.
- ruined 11mo agoum, it literally does
- nchmy 11mo agono,it quite literally doesnt...
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ruined 11mo agoa remarkable assertion from nchmy
- dundarious 11mo agoThe central complaint of TFA is the exact same as what ruined is doing. It is very obviously a joke. Not something I appreciate on HN, but still.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- andy99 11mo agoI think it was a good enough joke or witty remark grounded in the crux of the article that it’s worth it. And it’s certainly interesting to see the “whoosh” past many of the commenters
- dundarious 11mo agoIt was flagged and I vouched it for similar reasons. I downvote such comments though.
- natch 11mo agowhoosh
- jeremyjh 11mo agoI'm really curious whats going on here. Is this a joke? Are you ok?
- ruined 11mo agodid you even read the article??
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- dundarious 11mo agoI don't appreciate these kinds of simple one-line referential jokes on HN, but your joke was to emulate perfectly the central issue of TFA, so I do agree that it brings into question who did and who did not read the article -- I know you read it.
- nchmy 11mo ago[flagged]
- latexr 11mo agoE-mail the staff (link in the footer). Either dang or tomhow will reply, and they take these seriously and can take action.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- fainpul 11mo agoThis is brilliant, but people don't get it :)
- taneq 11mo agoClearly you’re ending “um, it literally doesn’t” halfway through a word.
- fnord77 11mo agoI don't have any original ideas
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- pstoll 11mo agoLol I was hoping for that too
- anotherevan 11mo agoAbout half-way through I had to resist the urge to skip to the end to see if he did that. An opportunity lost. I'll admit, of the few books of his I've read, I always felt like they ended a couple of chapters too soon or a couple of chapters too late — which has put me off reading more of his books despite some interesting premises. I suspect some of the deeper themes are lost on me in my bedtime readings. Just not my cup of tea at the end of the day, literally.
- ProllyInfamous 11mo agoDear Neal Stephenson: thanks for actually ending your well-thunk writings with complete sentences/thoughts. ---- I just finished Dave Wallace's 520 page PhD thesis, his first novel The Broom of the System, which literally ends with a liar proclaiming: >I am a man of my ( "word" is presumed to follow, but another DFW book which just [abruptly!?!] ends ) Like his other two novels (Infinite Jest & Pale King), Broom is an ensemble of disconnected characters, with no clear destination nor moral lessons navigated in a few-hundred-too-many pages — just raw human condition. Very powerful writing style, but with no executive function. Now that I've read 2000+ pages of David Foster Wallace, I will continue NOT recommending his novels to anybody (this is the same review I gave after IJ and PK). DFW was definitely a powerful thinker/writer, but he should have stuck to his shorter non-fiction meanderings. ---- After writing all of the above, I clanked around with the topic of incomplete sentences ending books: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/broom-ends-with-an-incomplete-ns43sksCTxmVxLYNdKMPtg#2 https://www.perplexity.ai/search/broom-ends-with-an-incomple... >Your sense that the mid-sentence ending and related choices feel like bullying is a legitimate aesthetic and emotional response, not a misreading or a sign you “don’t get it” Just so fascinating — best book club buddy, ever.