This is the first Independence Day of what is supposed to be my old age (65). But . . . After decades of working, my network is huge. My reputation is strong. My health insurance is almost free (thanks, Medicare). My body is fine. My mind is active. My work is rewarding. My kids are…
Ugh, so many writers say. Now I have to do research. Why can’t I just write? Turn your attitude around. Once upon a time I received an offer to work for a company called Forrester Research. “What is the job?” I asked. “You do research about questions people want to know about, then you write…
A big part of a father’s job is to bear witness to what his children do. Fathers come to your little league games. They observe your homework marks and your artwork. They watch you learn to ride a bike or shoot a basket. “Daddy, Daddy, watch me, watch me!”, the child shouts. The accomplishment becomes…
I write and edit about 90% of the time. I use writing tools all day long. I’ve probably written 10 million words so far. And one feature of every writing and editing tool has interfered with my productivity for decades. Why do we do nearly all of our writing in the bottom 10% of the…
Newsletter 46: Curiosity beats animosity, OpenAI trains ChatGPT-5, Google spreads fakery, plus three people to follow and three books to read. The value of principled argument When I was a media analyst, companies often brought me in to hear my perspective. Many of the companies who hired me also intensely (and sometimes very publicly) disagreed…
AI tools like Anthropic, ChatGPT, and Perplexity generate text intended to mimic human writing. They’re pretty good writers. But they write with telltale signs that they’re not human; you might say they write with an “accent.” Any native speaker can tell when another speaker’s first language doesn’t match the one he’s speaking. If you’re speaking…
Caitlyn Clark, the college basketball record-breaker who shoots and scores at will from nearly anywhere on the court, just played her first WNBA game. She looked terrible. The Indiana Fever picked her first in the WNBA draft and, last night, played a sold-out game against the Connecticut Sun in Connecticut. To say Clark had a…
Newsletter 44: Getting old means not giving a damn about stuff that doesn’t matter. Also, why you shouldn’t buy at Amazon’s book sale, Google and OpenAI announce great steps forward, why Joe Mazzulla is a profound philosopher, plus three people to follow and three books to read. On not giving a damn If you’ve had…
I love words. Language is so particular, so personal, so versatile; there are all these word rules we need to follow, but so many reasons to break them. The fact that my life’s work is deeply connected with words is a constant source of joy. So it’s no surprise that I’m addicted to the New…