Writing these post should really be in the style of a "Dear Mum" letter. Yep I have been reading Everybody Writes (Ann Handly).

A book on writing always has a lot to digest and many of the details have not stuck in my head yet. Here are some key bits that have.

• Writing should be about you, the reader (in this case that includes future me)
• Delete the first paragraph, usually it contains nothing of interest.
• Let your words breath. Plenty of white space and avoid walls of dense text.
• Write for someone scanning the text.
• Make every word earn its keep.

There a lot more in the book but those ones stand out to me. Once these are internalised others will take their place.

Yep it is part of the plan to improve some of my softer skills. I'm not sure why they call them soft skills as they are really hard to do well. It is like they got the meaning of soft and hard skills the wrong way round.

Why am I improving my written skills in a world where Chat GPT exits? I find if I can write clearly about something I can think clearly about it. The value is in the thinking not the actual written output. So I write for me but some of it I would like to be available to all.

Secondary, it helps motivate me if I am writing a public blog.

I don't know how these large learning text models are going to change the world, it depends on how far along the technology sigmoid curve they are. The best advice is be adaptable and where appropriate use them to enhance your productivity.

Predicted decline in world populations means productivity increases need to pick up this slack from an economic point of view. Bad things will happen in developed countries if it doesn't happen. Yes worse than what we are going though now. Tangential I know.

Stephen Wolfram wrote a very nice article on chat GPT. It is one of the best things I have read on the internet for a while (like the last few years). It does a good job of introducing neural networks in general

I have had my head down in creating a small game. I was hoping to make more progress than I had. It's not to say I am disappointed I just underestimated the amount of work involved. I have learn't a lot just not sure if it is worth going the extra mile on it. My instinct is saying not.

Perhaps I need to write up an article about it.

Rising at 5am is going quite well. It is not something I haven't collected my thoughts about just yet. I feel like there is post around it. Short evenings are still a bit weird and I don't think I am quite done experimenting with it.

If you are thinking of trying it I would say go for it. It has so far been positive.