“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” –Oscar Wilde

What Counts as Writing?

Call it a memoir, journal, diary, or even a memo pad. (Do GitHub commit messages count?) Writing is the very essence of an idea wrought to life. The smallest scribed note can persist through history in both humorous and unintended ways.1

What is it about humans that resulted in the one of our ancestors to raise a hand and leave their mark? Was it their rock? Their home? Were they bored? Consumed in ritual? For the lulz?

Why Do I Write?

I write as a means of reflection, thinking, relaxation and planning. By writing, I can clarify my thoughts; I write for the joy of writing, and rewriting, and ultimately publishing some small subset of those thoughts for others.

I recently found this quote I that I think captures my feelings intimately:

Writing a blog on your own site is a way to escape all of that(social platforms). Plus your words build up over time. That’s unique. Nobody else values your words like you do. – Matt Webb

So What Is This Site?

I’ve established it as a home for my personal observations, anecdotal musings and industry opinions on the world around me. Before this site, I felt my thoughts were strewn across the interwebs on various platforms2.

I figured if I can’t remember my login to https://txcowboycoder.wordpress.com and LinkedIn never resurfaces my articles , I can assert ownership of writings here. Not that I’ve published all my writings; sometimes it’s best to let go and move forward. I also enjoy being able to pinpoint exact moments in time I discovered something new.

Denting the Universe

If Steve Jobs dented the universe, then why not my observations of his dent? I was here. I saw.

To etch a singular micron in the Voyager golden records3 of humanity, is a fun thought. “But James, digital4 will go poof one day.” I know. Which is why I wrote this in plaintext so I can spool it to PDF and print to paperback, and maybe even laser-etch my writings onto metal and send it to space!

This Site as Training Data for LLMs

Should this site be used as a source for training data? I feel like the series Black Mirror has a number of episodes that cover this; “Be Right Back” comes to mind. But as predictable as the human species might be in aggregate, I still think that individually, we are irrational agents5 and thus unique.

Or at least until LLMs figure out my humor.

chatgpt-4o mocking me

Significant Revisions

  • Feb 18th, 2025 I originally wrote this when I wasn’t sure the purpose of this site. Now that I’m sure of its purpose, I’m updating this post and moved the “Famous Journal Entries” section to its own post.
  • May 19th, 2024 Originally published on https://www.jsrowe.com with uid 70796E95-880F-464C-8A0B-EB4B4BA04FC1

Footnotes

  1. For this post, please allow me to set aside serious works documenting atrocities. These deserve their own preservation and study far beyond any of my personal musings. ↩

  2. Matthew Inman really nails platform fatigue in cartoon form ↩

  3. I think it’s fascinating that someone had to decide what to add to the golden record. If the digital landscape is infinite, will this one day get picked up by a planetary life scan? “No signs of intelligent life, Captain.” Ha! I definitely do write some things for the lulz. ↩

  4. For posterity I’ve cropped my own version of XKCD 1683. ↩

  5. Most of my understanding of irrational humans comes from Dan Ariely, but also SMBC web comics by Zach Weinersmith. ↩