[HN Gopher] Maybe the default settings are too high
___________________________________________________________________
Maybe the default settings are too high
Author : htk
Score : 863 points
Date : 2025-12-25 23:13 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.raptitude.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.raptitude.com)
| chilmers wrote:
| If you're a fan of LOTR but don't fancy reading it aloud
| yourself, I'd really recommend the new audio versions read by
| Andy Serkis. While I don't vibe with every facet of his
| performance, overall it's a tour-de-force, and really makes the
| prose come to life. Especially in those descriptive sections that
| it's possible to glaze over when reading the text. Having an
| actor of the calibre of Serkis reading them to you brings out the
| poetry and beauty of Tolkien's language.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Is the entire thing narrated in Gollum's voice?
| taberiand wrote:
| He does lots of different voices, it's very good
| sethammons wrote:
| > "Fly-ses you foool-ses", exclaimed stupid, dry tricksy one
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Noooo. Audio books feed you the content at someone else's pace,
| not at your (slow) pace, which is exactly what TFA advocates.
| Or, what are you going to do? Hit Pause after each sentence so
| you can fully digest and savor it?
| qwertytyyuu wrote:
| Use the playback speed settings, tough hitting pause every
| once in a while is also a good idea
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| An audiobook is bad if you want to go _extra_ slow. I don 't
| think I want to go _that_ slow.
|
| The article advocates not rushing. In general, that's a good
| fit for audiobooks.
| Zenbit_UX wrote:
| First of all, I don't recommend going through life yucking
| someone else's yum.
|
| Second of all, I took TFA advice and read that article with
| the slowness and deliberate attention it recommended and
| found it to be trite and difficult to distinguish from AI
| slop... but if that's what brings this person joy, good for
| them.
|
| Who cares if the GP eats their cookies in one bite and
| listens to their audiobooks at 2.25x speed? Because one self
| help guru turned blogger said it's a bad idea?
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Interesting how in your second paragraph you do exactly the
| thing you said not to do in your first.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The article literally says:
|
| > _limiting myself to mouth-speed_
|
| Audiobooks are mouth-speed.
|
| The article suggests this is the right slow speed, at least
| for the author.
|
| Maybe you yourself want even slower, but that's not what the
| article is suggesting.
| gryson wrote:
| And if you keep reading (at whatever speed), you get to the
| actual point of the article:
|
| >So I tried slowing down even more, and discovered
| something. I slowed to a pace that felt almost absurd,
| treating each sentence as though it might be a particularly
| important one. I gave each one maybe triple the usual time
| and attention, ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of
| pages to go.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Audiobook are mouth speed but have no pause. When reading
| slowly, I often want to pause a few seconds and think about
| what I just read before moving on to the next sentence.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Audiobook are mouth speed but have no pause.
|
| You can't pause your audiobooks?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I pause audiobooks all the time by squeezing the base of
| my earbud, or pressing the big pause button on my
| Bluetooth speaker. Works great. As well as the triple-tap
| to go back 15 seconds to hear something again.
| sublinear wrote:
| I hate audiobooks because they're way too slow and full of
| moods/tones that often contradict how I would have read it. I
| can't be the only one who thinks they're overindulgent and
| annoying.
| bigiain wrote:
| For me, "overindulgent and annoying" is way too harsh. But
| they feel _sooooo_ slow and I kind of resent "missing out"
| on the other books I could have read while the audiobook
| plods along (even at chipmunk 2x babble speed).
| Uvix wrote:
| I save audiobooks for times when I _couldn 't_ have read
| something else - while doing chores, driving, etc. - so I
| can avoid that "missing out" feeling.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Audible and most audiobook player apps let you control the
| speed. I usually listen at 1.25 to 1.5
| bigiain wrote:
| That to me, feels opposite the the article's advice.
|
| And I too, often watch youtube at 1.5x or 2x speed, and
| dislike audiobooks because I read so much faster that I can
| possibly listen to them, and there's always an ever growing
| list/pile of books I want to read after this one. I wonder
| if that's why a certain type of movie works so well for me
| - I think of them as "movies made from short stories, not
| novels", and now I'm wondering if it's something similar to
| the OP's idea - and that spending 2 hours watching a short
| story I'd expect to read in 15/20mins is what I'm enjoying,
| in a different way to, say, the new Dune movies - which so
| far have been 4-5 hours watching a couple of big novel's
| worth of story that'd take me a week or so to read? Just
| writing that out now, I realised theres a two orders of
| magnitude difference in speed there going from 1/10th of
| reading speed to 10x reading speed - from a 15 minute read
| to 2 hour watch, to a week long read to 4-5 hour watch.
| Hardly surprising they hit my brain differently.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Audiobooks are awesome because I can listen to them while
| doing other things like walking or biking or lifting
| weights. And the best narrators actually improve the
| books like The Hail Mary Project and Blood Meridian.
| teiferer wrote:
| That's the exact opposite of what the article is about. The
| desire to time optimize, to rush it cause "this is sooo
| sloooow, booooring" is what creates only an illusion of
| time efficiency but you might discover that if you actually
| give it the time, there is a whole world to discover.
| That's what the article is about.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Reading books as slow as the article says is rather
| silly.
| teiferer wrote:
| You are free to have that opinion and I personally also
| find it a little too extreme, but the author's main point
| is a good one.
| baobun wrote:
| Not each sentence but I do regularly pause and sometimes skip
| back in audiobooks, yes.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Then just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed? I don't understand this
| question.
| retsibsi wrote:
| > Then just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed?
|
| I think this often sounds unsettling (like the reader is
| drunk or otherwise impaired), and anyway the listener
| doesn't need more time to recognise each individual word --
| they want time to take in sentences and paragraphs.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Get a text to speech app and change the lengths between
| sentences while keeping the actual read aloud speed the
| same, I recall using something like that before.
| anywhichway wrote:
| It isn't just how fast or slow it is. Reading at a slow
| pace gives you time to think in a way that is flexible from
| sentence to sentence.
|
| To borrow the same analogy from the article, image trying
| to savor a meal where someone else was deciding when you
| take each bite. Even at a slow pace, the rigidness of the
| pace and your lack of fine control would still pose a
| problem with giving each bite it's rightful consideration.
|
| That being said I love audio books and think I would
| struggle to apply this article's advice in my own life.
| Slowing down your audiobook is still a step in that
| direction, though I sometimes find that slowing it down can
| cause my mind to wander and my comprehension goes down and
| not up.
| m463 wrote:
| I think a long drive in the car is complemented exceptionally
| well by audiobooks.
|
| and audiobooks with really good narrators? the miles will
| melt away.
|
| (I like Wil Wheaton)
|
| (don't know about lotr oudiobooks)
|
| (currently part way through we are legion read by ray porter)
| kbutler wrote:
| We had tried video in the car for our teens, but found that
| audio books worked a lot better - shared experience, nobody
| has a bad angle/line of sight, can still see the scenery
| and engage in the travel, less looking down prompting
| motion sickness, etc.
|
| Though now that everybody has a device, we have to
| intentionally opt for a shared experience, rather than 1:1
| devices.
| toyg wrote:
| Listening to someone talking is how humanity transmitted
| culture and stories for tens of thousands of years. The fact
| that "we" cannot tolerate it anymore, is a sign of how badly
| our brains are being reshaped (or maybe damaged) by screens.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| OTOH, fire, writing and sanitation are significant upgrades
| to what we were doing "for tens of thousands of years".
|
| State of nature isn't inherently good. It's bloody, smelly,
| dirty, and only incidentally nice, by virtue of
| evolutionary path dependence.
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| Not the OP, but to me audio generally x2 slower than I read,
| so I'm content with the speed, anything slower than that
| would be weird pace for many stuff.
|
| Having said that yes I do indeed pause if I need to take a
| moment to think, and I roll back 15 seconds if I want to hear
| it again. Not a big deal, just part of the experience.
| -signed ex-hater of audiobooks
| zem wrote:
| for lotr in particular my last reread was slower paced because
| I kept this map[0] open and paused frequently to refer to it
| and see where everyone was. it was super enjoyable, I have
| literally read the book dozens of times before that and have
| never gotten so good a sense of the world's geography and the
| difficulty of various journeys.
|
| [0]
| https://old.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/100n0y/maybe_t...
| sgt wrote:
| I guess he gets the Gollum parts just perfectly.
| pitched wrote:
| It's impossible to know if the content itself is worth the extra
| time and effort. Opportunity Cost is especially high in fiction.
| I agree that LotR should be on that list though.
| Yodel0914 wrote:
| I partially agree, but it depends on your objective function.
| If you're optimising for the enjoyment of the experience of
| reading, you don't need to know if the content is "worth it";
| just read it slowly and if you're not enjoying it, stop.
| Gigachad wrote:
| When you start thinking about books in terms of opportunity
| cost, you're the kind who needs to slow down the most.
| Morizero wrote:
| LotR is a product of a slower era. I wonder how a modern/recent
| example would compare
| malfist wrote:
| Maybe Robert Jordan or James SA Corey?
| eszed wrote:
| I've not read enough Corey to form a judgement, but I don't
| think Jordan has nearly enough literary "heft" to satisfy
| close reading. Don't get me wrong: the story is fun - I
| enjoyed every bit of _Wheel of Time_ - and would recommend it
| to anyone who likes that sort of thing, but the deeper stuff
| (characters, prosidy, world-building, thematic "meaning")
| don't bear much examination.
|
| In fantasy / sci-fi, I'd unreservedly recommend:
|
| - Ursula K LeGuin
|
| - Steven Erickson
|
| - Gene Wolfe
|
| With reservations, I'd recommend:
|
| - Patrick Rothfuss (unfinished)
|
| - George RR Martin (unfinished; sometimes dodgy prose, but
| occasionally transcendent character and theme)
|
| - _Dune_ (just know it goes downhill _fast_ after the first
| book)
|
| Elsewhere, but still genre (ie: meant to be entertaining, not
| uber-serious, self-conscious "literature"):
|
| - Patrick O'Brian
|
| - Arthur Conan Doyle
|
| - Dorothy Dunnet
|
| I'd recommend Rudyard Kipling's short stories, but they're
| hit and miss, and sometimes out of step with modern mores.
| Maybe stick with the _Jungle Book_ , and _Just So Stories_ ,
| and if you like those make sure you read _Without Benefit of
| Clergy_ , _They_ (short stories), and _Kim_ (a masterpiece of
| a novel).
|
| Once you've got through those, Hemingway is approachable, and
| the true modernist master. _Fiesta_ / _The Sun Also Rises_
| (same book, known by different names in different parts of
| the world) is ironic and beautiful; _A Farewell to Arms_ is
| beautiful and almost unbearably sad; his short stories are
| impeccable.
| wredcoll wrote:
| There's certainly slow books still being written but most
| fantasy books in specific assume a certain amount of knowledge
| about a tolkien-esque world. You can do entirely new worlds,
| and some people do, but most stories are about people and the
| choices they make.
| projektfu wrote:
| Does Dostoyevsky really need the slow treatment? Some parts of
| crime and punishment merited rereading but, at least in English
| translation, I didn't find much in the style to savor. Really it
| was more thematically interesting and suspenseful.
| maplethorpe wrote:
| Were you reading it in the original Russian?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Haven't gotten around to re-reading Dostoyevsky. But
| Turgenev's English translations absolutely benefit from slow
| reading.
| treavorpasan wrote:
| Fathers and Sons were absolute masterpiece.
| projektfu wrote:
| Yes, in the English translation
| tetromino_ wrote:
| In the original Russian, Dostoyevsky requires the slow
| treatment. He loves the sort of 1/3 page long sentences that
| perplex the fast-path parser and force the reader's brain to
| swap; as if he wants to drive you mad so that you can better
| understand the madmen whom he writes about.
| treavorpasan wrote:
| Wait until you get to The Brothers Karamazov.
|
| There is so much to unpack, which requires very slow treatment.
|
| One of the things is savour so much is the time I read Idiot,
| we were on a cruise completely disconnected from the rest of
| the world. No distractions and just the sound on waves.
| projektfu wrote:
| Good to know!
| delichon wrote:
| My dad was a busy construction contractor. One summer he tore
| himself away from work and took the family to a week long boat
| camp out next to a big beautiful lake. It turned out that our
| campsite was actually in the lake by a few inches at high water,
| but dad saw a way to dam it off and keep it dry, so he grabs the
| shovel and starts digging trenches and building walls and
| ordering us around.
|
| About an hour into that, pouring sweat, he stops cold and says
| "what the hell am I doing?" The flooded camp was actually nice on
| a hot day and all we really had to do was move a couple of tents.
| He dropped the shovel and spent the rest of the week sunbathing,
| fishing, snorkeling and water skiing as God intended. He flipped
| a switch and went from Hyde to Jekyll on vacation. I've had to
| emulate that a few times.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| My spouse and I dealt with this on our honeymoon. We were both
| working 50-80 hour weeks for months leading up to our trip. The
| first day we got to this all-inclusive resort we spent the
| whole time trying to min/max and be as efficient and calculated
| as possible. It was a stressful, miserable day.
|
| Day two we looked at each other, had an adult beverage with
| breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the trip.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I have a hard time doing anything when in a nice resort. If
| it's too nice, you just want to hangout at your pool villa
| all day and enjoy the view.
| ghaff wrote:
| And if you're presumably paying a premium for a nice
| resort, why wouldn't you spend a lot of your time taking
| advantage of it?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Yes, if you want to get out and do things, better to go
| for low or mid range. You don't want your room to feel
| like a huge sunk cost.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not really a resort person. But I do subscribe to some
| travel feeds mostly in the vein of maybe finding some
| places/attractions/restaurants/etc. that I'm not familiar
| with. The number of hyper-scheduled spreadsheets I see is
| amazing. Doesn't mean I don't often have some itinerary and
| even book some particular, popular attractions/venues. But
| the 30-minute block scheduling is something I do for work (if
| that).
|
| ADDED: I'll just add that I created a loose spreadsheet for a
| ~week-long NYC trip with (I think) just one timed admission
| for a recently reopened museum and no times otherwise. I
| think I ended up dynamically scrawling over the printout with
| changes for most of the trip.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I have an upcoming trip planned in asia - never been
| before.
|
| My firm rule is - have a loose plan, aim for one activity
| per day, an emergency option, or two, if the weather plays
| up, and that's it.
|
| It's the type of plan that has worked for every holiday
| that I have taken that involves a different city to the one
| I live in.
| qmr wrote:
| This is typically what I aim for.
|
| One or two core activities for the day.
|
| If it works out for more that's great but it's not
| expected or necessary.
|
| I've traveled with some people who seem focused on just
| getting pictures in front of as many things as possible
| which seems a poor way to really take in a place.
| criddell wrote:
| My family went to Hawaii a couple of years ago and in the
| exact middle of the trip we took a day doing absolutely
| nothing and it was kind of great.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think that's a good plan. I do tend to book hotels,
| planes, and usually longer trains. But, especially for a
| longer city trip, I loosely map out--even if just
| mentally--things I want to see and do but, for example,
| one museum a day is mostly enough unless another
| convenient one is small.
| helle253 wrote:
| one of the funniest things about going to NYC with a
| toddler was how very chill it was to go with a toddler
|
| there are parks everywhere!
| macNchz wrote:
| Growing up in a quaint rural town where high-powered people
| from NYC liked to "get away", this is very common situation,
| and the inability to disconnect and adopt a slower attitude
| was, IMO, the primary cause of friction between the
| weekenders and the locals. They would _physically_ get away
| from the city, but were unable to mentally release the blend
| of Type-A competitive neuroses that helped them get ahead in
| the city but just made them come off as obnoxious in this
| slower, quieter place.
|
| I've found myself in this mode before, too. A couple of years
| ago I was preparing for weeklong wilderness backpacking trip
| with some friends. I'd recently quit my high-stress job to
| take some time off, and I had a few new pieces of gear I
| wanted to test before relying on them on a longer trip. When
| I looked at the calendar, though, every weekend before we
| were to leave was already spoken for.
|
| I was worrying about it to my wife, trying to decide whether
| I'd just have to use the old worn out gear or risk it with
| the new stuff, when she stopped me: "why don't you just... go
| on Monday?" It took me a second to even get what she was
| saying--I was still so much in work-all-the-time-mode that my
| brain didn't even consider whatsoever the possibility that I
| could just... go off and go camping on a weekday. I was
| really baffled for a moment, and I've reflected on that a bit
| since, it's funny how you can be trapped in your own default
| operating mode and not even realize it.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| It's like those animals that walk in little circles the
| size of their last pen.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Except the pen is 1/3 of our adult lives.
| temp0826 wrote:
| Which 1/3 is that? It's black iron prisons all the way
| down
| Tade0 wrote:
| I've settled in a city 60% smaller than the one I grew up
| in. It's still a full-blown city, but there's way fewer of
| those competitive types - they all moved to where I came
| from.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I was like this but maybe not as stressful as you described.
| Still, I wanted to do stuff and see stuff during vacation.
|
| After having kids, my habit changed. Now we enjoy going to
| local parks and walking around with no goals during vacation.
| This wonderful attraction? Nah we don't need to see it. If we
| can walk there, then maybe.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| When we were planning a trip to Hawaii the first thing I
| researched was where all the local parks with playgrounds
| were. That way if we were driving and my son was getting
| bored or we needed to stretch our legs we knew where
| something was. There's usually a town, village, or city
| park nearby no matter where I've been. Even driving to
| Crater Lake through rural Oregon there were some great
| parks in the towns we drove through. Same with the drive
| out to Yosemite. This was the case up until we got within
| an hour or two of the park itself.
|
| Some of the most enjoyable parts of those trips were
| hanging out with my family in a local park.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Where'd you sleep? Going wit the flow and enjoying life is
| admirable but that sounds like a pretty terrible camp site tbh.
| throwaway0665 wrote:
| They moved the tents.
| Archelaos wrote:
| Yep. Slow reading of HN comments also has its benefits.
| teekert wrote:
| I guess this person sees the same mental image as me:
| Tents with wet floor, moisture sucked into everything
| inside. A tent that's been in a lake sounds like a
| throwaway to me. But maybe what you see as a tent is
| different from what I see.
|
| For me the story was also a bit weird. "Just take the
| tents out of the water". Ok...
| HPsquared wrote:
| Tents often are waterproof for the first few inches.
| jibal wrote:
| Even if that were true (and it obviously isn't), what
| then would be the point of expending tremendous time and
| energy to "dam it off and keep it dry"?
|
| These are alternative ways to keep the tents dry ...
| which entails that they were never soaked in the first
| place.
|
| > A tent that's been in a lake
|
| The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the
| _campsite_ was in the lake at high water.
|
| > sounds like a throwaway to me
|
| Do you have any experience with this? I've been on trips
| where tents and even sleeping bags ended up in a river.
| They don't dissolve ...they can be dried in the sun. And
| a tent with a wet floor can be wiped down.
|
| > "Just take the tents out of the water".
|
| Those words don't appear anywhere. Try looking at the
| actual words and not just your mental images.
| teekert wrote:
| I guess the term "tent" is pretty broad, this is what I
| see: [0], the cotton does not take being in water very
| well.
|
| But I guess a synthetic ultra light tent will do better.
|
| I also assumed the tents were already there when he
| arrived (complete assumption, but the term campsite
| conjures up a place with tents already there), and so
| must be of the more heavy more stationary kind.
|
| Anyway, the point is, I also had this question: Where do
| you go when you mess up your tent like that? How can a
| dam in a layer of water make it dry? Don't you need a dam
| and then pump it dry.
|
| This is going too far, I just wanted to defend the
| question. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
|
| [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=de+waard+tent&ia=ima
| ges&iax...
| jibal wrote:
| > the term campsite conjures up a place with tents
| already there
|
| You've never been camping. Ok.
| scott_w wrote:
| I think you're viewing this through your own cultural
| lens where camping can be totally solo (in the woods?)
|
| In England, we can't just pitch up a tent in the woods,
| we need to pay for a campsite where there's other tents.
|
| I suspect, from their description, this person is from a
| different country again, where camping may happen in
| large open steppe with lots of other yurts.
| teekert wrote:
| Yeah, this.
| jibal wrote:
| Nothing you wrote contradicts anything I said about
| camping. Someone else suggested that "campsite" just
| means the area covered by a tent and its groundcover,
| which is closer to the "mental image" of the other person
| who wrongly believes that tents got waterlogged, but is
| the arch opposite of yours. I've camped in the woods, on
| open steppes, and in designated camping areas in French
| and English towns. In each of those cases I brought my
| own tent, but I've also "glamped" and stayed in existing
| canvas-sided structures, from Yosemite to Mont St.
| Michel.
|
| Also, this is about a campsite a few inches of which is
| in a lake, and people moving their tents. But apparently
| paying attention to the actual context is optional for
| some people.
| scott_w wrote:
| I'm not trying to dispute your version of events. I'm
| just offering a suggestion of what teekert had in their
| mind when they thought of a campsite, to better help you
| see where the misunderstanding comes from. Given they
| replied with agreement, I hope I captured it accurately.
|
| I also feel it was unnecessary to dismiss their
| experience as "not camping," just because it was
| different to yours. It turns a learning opportunity for
| us all into a needlessly toxic argument.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| I've been camping, on trips that ranged from "park on the
| side of the road and set up a tent" to "hike four days
| carrying everything" and also "drive to campsite, walk
| into permanent managed tent". Sounds like you've only
| done a more limited range of camping trips.
| jibal wrote:
| No, it doesn't sound like that at all, and you have
| offered no reason to think so. It's the other person who
| clearly has an extremely limited notion of camping: "the
| term campsite conjures up a place with tents already
| there" -- perhaps you have the two of us mixed up. And
| the OP said that _they moved the tents_ , so _ass-u-me
| ing_ that they were fixed structures is not rational.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| A "campsite" is a relatively flat and relatively
| root/stump-free patch of dirt. That's it. Also tents are
| generally not made out of the canvas material you linked
| that yurts and teepees might be made from.
|
| Tents are generally made of a very wuick-drying, thin
| synthetic.
|
| And like the other person said, this does make it seem
| like you've potentially never been camping but i don't
| want to gatekeep the definition of "camping". My version
| is carrying everything I need on my back for two weeks
| and walking 10-15 miles each day to the next campsite
| (read: "patch of dirt", preferably near fresh water).
| Other people "camp" in RV's though, so.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Camping is just the bit about sleeping at night. I'd call
| your version hiking/walking/backpacking depending where I
| am.
| jibal wrote:
| Of course it's not.
|
| "A campsite is a designated area where individuals can
| set up bedding, sleeping bags, or cooking equipment, such
| as stoves or fires. This definition encompasses any
| location that allows for sleeping or cooking, regardless
| of whether it includes a tent, lean-to, shack, or other
| structures."
|
| I would note that camping also involves sitting in
| campchairs talking, reading, singing, etc.
|
| And
|
| > I'd call your version hiking/walking/backpacking
| depending where I am.
|
| The hiking/walking/backpacking is what nerdsniper does
| _between campsites_ :
|
| > My version is carrying everything I need on my back for
| two weeks and walking 10-15 miles each day ==> to the
| next campsite <==
|
| Despite his phrasing, he of course is not saying that
| hiking == camping.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Have you tried hammock camping? I only tried it at a
| campground, so, maybe there are some downsides I missed
| for the real backpackers. But it was pretty cool to _not_
| care about roots, the flatness of my patch of ground, or
| anything like that.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| Natural fiber canvas tents take to water about the same
| as your tee shirt does. Which is to say perfectly fine.
| Soaking them for a few days or even weeks shouldn't
| really bother them if the water is not warm and stagnant
| (like a nice clean lake). The biggest killer is storing
| them still wet.
| systemtest wrote:
| > Maybe it's a cultural difference.
|
| It appears that you are confused with West European
| camping, which is where you drive two days to the south
| of France (most of which stuck in traffic), pay large
| amounts of money for a patch of perfectly flat grass
| where you are allowed to park your car and set up your
| tent. In a grid pattern with hundreds of other tents.
| Where there is a building nearby for toilets and showers.
| And a swimming pool plus live entertainment for the
| children.
|
| OP appears to be talking about camping in nature.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the
| campsite was in the lake at high water. [...] Those words
| don 't appear anywhere. Try looking at the actual words
| and not just your mental images._
|
| I think some people are interpreting "campsite" as the
| _literal space occupied by the tent's ground sheet_ while
| you are interpreting it as the broader area - which in an
| organised institutional arrangement might be called the
| "campground"
|
| To use an analogy, think of being in a partly flooded
| parking _space_ vs parking _lot_
|
| It makes sense that someone with the former
| interpretation - the tent ground sheet submerged by a few
| inches of water - would understand that the tent got
| soaked.
| jibal wrote:
| I'm interpreting the word as what it means and how it is
| obviously being used. No one takes "campsite" to mean
| "the literal space occupied by the tent's ground sheet"
| unless they are playing some silly sophistic game. Here
| is what it means (pick your own source ... they are all
| similar and none agrees with your definition):
|
| "A campsite is a designated area where individuals can
| set up bedding, sleeping bags, or cooking equipment, such
| as stoves or fires. This definition encompasses any
| location that allows for sleeping or cooking, regardless
| of whether it includes a tent, lean-to, shack, or other
| structures."
|
| And here's the Wikipedia description, which notes that
| the English "campsite" is equivalent to the American
| "campground", but that is _broader_ and neither is so
| absurdly narrow as your words:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campsite
|
| > would understand that the tent got soaked
|
| I already refuted this nonsense ... there is no reason to
| think from the OP's description that the tent got soaked.
|
| > To use an analogy, think of ...
|
| I don't need any help with thinking, especially from bad
| analogies that are flatly contradicted by the OP's
| description. What's the parking lot analogy to building
| dams?
| selbyk wrote:
| I've always understood "campground" to be a whole area
| open to camping with dozens or hundreds of campers. A
| campsite is where your group's claim is staked and the
| area you occupy including picnic tables, fires, etc--not
| just the tent.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Thanks for the attempt at a generous reading, but the
| truth of the matter is I just skimmed the comment and
| missed that bit. These things happen, no biggie.
| indrora wrote:
| They don't teach reading comprehension like they used to.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Do'h
| delichon wrote:
| Arizona, Lake Havasu, triple digit temperatures. We spent
| more time in the water than out of it. Us kids loved the
| flooded camp because of the tiny fish that would swim up and
| nibble on our toes. It tickled. The camp was boat access
| only, and there were a few million acres of desert wilderness
| higher ground to move up to. The water rose gradually and the
| tents never got wet.
|
| The bigger problem with that camp was the rattlesnakes. I
| killed one with the shovel and felt grown up.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Slowing down isn't passive, it's a conscious choice
| danielodievich wrote:
| We read LOTR to our sons when they were little. It was likely the
| 6th time for me,and 3rd in English. Stupendous experience. The
| command of the English Tolkien had is sublime. Wish the movies
| didn't take so much liberty with Faramir.!!!
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| I am currently reading The Hobbit to my son, who is 5 years old
| and not quite able to read it by himself yet. Nearly, but it's
| a lot for him to get through. Some evenings I use my Kindle,
| some evenings I use the copy I've owned since I was 11.
|
| However now he has started to _write_ stories about dragons and
| things, and that 's a pretty interesting development.
| djfergus wrote:
| For younger kids I can heartily recommend the Hobbit
| illustrated by Jemima Catlin- has plenty of pictures to them
| engaged. Read it to my 6 year old and we're now excited for
| LotR.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Oh, this looks excellent, thanks :-)
| fwip wrote:
| When I was about 10, I read the Hobbit to my younger brother
| (8), over a large number of half-hour car trips. It's one my
| prouder memories of that time.
| mikestorrent wrote:
| I've not braved reading them LOTR yet, but my sons are still
| getting read to even as one's about to become a teenager; it's
| some of my favourite time in the evening and it allows me to
| force them through books just slightly too advanced, with lots
| of them stopping me to explain (or me stopping to editorialize,
| and provide historical context etc).
|
| I don't know how long they'll let me keep doing it for, but I
| don't see any reason to stop
| lemming wrote:
| Well done, when I was growing up we would always have some
| time in the evening when we would read a book out loud. When
| we were younger my parents would read and as we got older we
| would read sometimes too. I tried the same with my daughter
| but she stopped wanting to when she was around 10, but she's
| in a better space now two years on so I'm going to try to
| resurrect the custom. It's a really lovely thing to do as a
| family, but as the article suggests is quite strange these
| days and it can be difficult and require discipline to make
| the time.
| eszed wrote:
| I can't _wait_ to read LOTR to my (now four-year-old) son. Been
| looking forward to it since we started trying for a kid.
| Seriously, peak fatherhood moment. I 'll savor it. That (and a
| few others are) on the embargo list: he's not allowed to see
| the film before we read the books. I wish I'd got _Winnie the
| Pooh_ on there in time.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| You're at a good time for The Hobbit. Strangely I find that
| Winnie the Pooh does not age well and is an awkward read.
|
| The Wind in the Willows is good beginning around that age
| too.
| lemming wrote:
| Really? I still love Winnie the Pooh, but I grew up with
| him so I'm somewhat biased. But I love the whimsy and
| musicality in the language.
| eszed wrote:
| Yeah, I'd have thought so. The lad's a little behind on
| appreciating narrative, though. _Loves_ books, but can 't
| yet focus on anything that isn't ~= pictures::words. It's
| fine; he'll get there.
|
| Love both _Pooh_ , and _Wind in the Willows_ , and will
| enjoy seeing how they take him.
| zem wrote:
| I feel like winnie the pooh won't lose much from having seen
| the film version beforehand, but also the books had the kind
| of whimsical humour that I enjoyed a lot more in college than
| I did as a kid.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yep, read LoTR to my daughters before the film came out.
| (Thankfully.)
|
| As promising as _Fellowship_ was, the films just kept going
| down hill--one after the other.
|
| As the girls were growing up we worked through all the Harry
| Potter books, a half-dozen of the "colored Fairy" books (edited
| by Andrew Lang), plenty of Uncle Remus tales, the "Little
| House" books and a number of Sid Fleischman books...
|
| Those were magical years. Only when homework arrived did the
| reading hour finally come to a close. :-(
| mrec wrote:
| I'm bang in the middle of a reread now; I've lost count of how
| many there've been. I'm 55 now, having first read it in my
| early teens, and it's astonishing how it just keeps growing and
| changing with you. Even after all these years, I'm still
| surprised by a painterly description of a cloud, or the sense
| of comfortable rootedness of a little Shire lane, or a little
| "aha, I never noticed that correlation before, _that 's_ what
| those orcs were doing", or "hmm, that's an odd word to put in
| that sentence, I wonder why he picked it?" followed by a
| fascinating bit of research.
|
| I've recently started the _Letters_ too, and can thoroughly
| recommend it. It 's fascinating and oddly cosy to get a direct
| tap into a mind you know so well at second hand, through its
| fiction.
| malfist wrote:
| I really enjoy this train of thought. It rings true to me, its
| also something Hank Green was recently talking about with the
| negative effects of the internet. Its not that the internet is
| bad. We're starved for information and meaning and were being
| feed a diet of ultraprocessed food in the form of shorts and
| tiktoks. I think the solution this author laid out is good.
| Consume quality, with care.
| skydhash wrote:
| This is one of the reason I use openbsd and emacs as my two
| main tools. There are better and more suited tools for some
| specific tasks. But using them is enjoyable and their core
| philosophy aligns to mine. And it's not like I actually need
| those extra things.
| powvans wrote:
| I find walking can be a similar experience. It really crystalized
| for me this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago because
| of the effect of exploring another country. When you walk, you
| see everything. The world is huge. Everything is slower, higher
| fidelity, and for me, richer. You can spend an entire day walking
| from one town to another. Think of everything you will see!
| Compare this to driving. Driving is like compression. You could
| drive between the same two towns in less than an hour. You may
| see many beautiful things while driving, but the experience is
| fleeting and momentary. You will miss so many details along the
| way.
|
| As always, there are tradeoffs, and you can't walk everywhere or
| always have these types of mindful experiences. On the other
| hand, life is short and perhaps paradoxically, slower experiences
| can yield richer days.
| solnyshok wrote:
| !Buen Camino! I walked it 10 years ago and hope to repeat it
| soon.
| colmmacc wrote:
| There is a great meditation in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
| Maintenance about the differences between riding and driving.
| Being open to the elements, in and a part of nature, is
| visceral. Bubbled in a car, our surroundings are observed more
| than experienced. That's always resonated for me.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| That's a book I've been taking my time with. Read a bit every
| few weeks. Found the part about visual memory mechanics
| resonated: I have to spread everything out and see it when
| doing mechanic work.
|
| No to doing books via audiobook because I see the words in my
| head and it's massively distracting. Cool if it works for
| others I guess but like the mechanic excerpt above... not for
| me.
| somat wrote:
| For the same reason I have decided I don't like fast travel in
| games. The whole thing becomes this strange distorted reality
| where the travel nodes and their immediate surroundings are
| over represented in your mental model but most of the rest of
| the map is blank. Now I don't think games should get rid of
| their fast travel systems But I find that enjoy the game world
| a lot more without them and think every one should try.
|
| The first time I did this was the breath of the wild zelda
| game, I got to the point in the tutorial where they teach you
| to fast travel and said, "no I don't want to" so I spent the
| whole game slow traveling around, planing my trips enjoying the
| scenery finding new routes , Just bumming back and forth across
| the map enjoying the game and all it's corners in small slices
| each night, it took me a couple months to get complete and it
| was great.
|
| My current phase of this madness is Valheim with no portals and
| no map. and wow it is an experience. With no map you get this
| hyper distorted view of the landscape the other way around, it
| is still based on what you can navigate easily but stuff like
| shorelines and terrain features are over represented and
| forests are these scary black boxes. Fog is very very scary,
| more than once fog has rolled in and I got so lost that I have
| had to say "well I guess I am living here now." I am currently
| having fun trying to figure out how to use the in game tools as
| surveying instruments to make my own hand drawn maps.
| II2II wrote:
| > For the same reason I have decided I don't like fast travel
| in games.
|
| I was playing Wing Commander, Privateer way back when
| (mid-1990's) and didn't realize that there were ways to
| travel faster. So I did the obvious: I pretended I was a
| trader on a long haul route, dug out some books and
| notebooks, and just did whatever until I arrived at my
| destination or was attacked by pirates. I loved the passive
| game play in the moment, but I didn't realize how much until
| about a decade later. That kinda ruined gaming for me in
| general since games tend to keep the player busy (even if
| they aren't action games).
|
| In some respects, I think that slow travel offers a sense of
| authenticity to the game. Well, I should say to some games.
| Many games set out goals for players. It's obvious why. If
| there is nothing to accomplish, there is little sense of
| accomplishment. Yet goals also ruin things in my mind since
| there is an urgency to get things done to see what the
| outcome is. Of course, games also reward following up on that
| urgency. That's contrary to real life where you may be
| rewarded or you may have to wait upon the rewards.
| energy123 wrote:
| I'm thinking of the The Forest survival game. The first one
| in the series was great.
|
| The successor game added an in-game compass/radar which
| detracted from the immersion, made the world feel small and
| boring.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I do agree, playing open world games without fast travel can
| be a bit of a slog though. I considered playing Skyrim
| without fast travel but many of the quests make you run half
| way across the map and back multiple times.
|
| Without fast travel you'd be forced to plan your trips more
| and bundle all the tasks in an area which would be cool. But
| it's probably too much to ask for the general public who will
| see it as annoying.
| ultra2d wrote:
| The hardcore mode of Kingdom Come: Deliverance really made me
| appreciate the game (although that's the only way I played
| it). It became a very immersive experience.
|
| Valheim without a map would be a bit too much for me. No way
| to quickly escape to some safe green pastures sounds too
| stressful :).
| jasonkester wrote:
| Valheim does that so well. The feeling of walking through an
| unfamiliar forest and stumbling across a faint trail that you
| made weeks ago, knowing that it will eventually lead you back
| to your old base and thus back to where you were trying to
| get to before you got lost...
|
| Reading the Reddit for the game, filled with people
| complaining that the portal system is too restrictive and
| forces them to make upwards of three long boat trips over the
| course of the game is a bit sad. It's as though they expect
| the fun to happen when they finish everything, but the fun
| all happens while you're actually playing the game.
| merelythere wrote:
| Had the same feeling a while ago, I called it the teleportation
| effect. From the moment you reduce the time needed to go
| somewhere, you alter the experience to a point that it's not
| recognizable. Not to say that it's not nice to see the mountain
| from the sky for one hour but it is an other thing to go
| through them.
|
| Something to break the teleportation is obviously to make
| breaks and enjoy where you are (a lake not too far on the road,
| any viewpoint...). Plan in advance, have a tent, be ready to
| not reach your target in one day and you will enjoy a much
| better a road trip than a train, a plane or even the highway.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Completely agree. I don't have a car anymore so I walk a lot,
| and my mental image of the streets is so much more in depth now
| to the point I could visualise streets down to the stickers on
| poles.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| I like thinking about the scales of speed and the impact it has
| on one's experience.
|
| I used to fly fairly regularly between Germany and Italy. I'd
| get on a plane in Munich and get off in Florence, going from a
| very "German" place to a very "Italian" place. A few years ago
| I started driving the route, and I was surprised just how much
| gradation there is between the cultures.
|
| As an American, I always thought of "Italians" and "Germans" as
| very distinct cultures, but then you drive through Sudtirol (or
| Alto Adige, if you're feeling Italian, the northern most
| province of Italy) and it feels quite Germanic. Then gradually,
| as you continue south, you hear more Italian, see more
| Italianate architecture and place names. Similar story for
| Alsace between France and Germany.
|
| Of course none of this is all that surprising knowing the
| history of these areas, but it is very interesting to
| experience in-person.
|
| I'm sure most places and cultures are like this, even when we
| think of of them as quite distinct. When you only fly between
| major cities, you lose so much of the wonderful overlap.
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| I love walking and couple of years ago I moved to LA. I fucking
| hate how hard to walk in this city. I always knew I liked
| walking but I didn't realize how crucial it was for mental
| health (I grew up around Europe, purely on walkable cities and
| didn't get my driving license until 30,years old or something)
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Yep, slower days often feel longer and fuller at the same time
| dsubburam wrote:
| Music is an interesting case. You can't slow down the consumption
| of music (you have to let it play at the speed the performer
| intended), but you can dial up the attention you give it.
| Listening with headphones, eyes closed, and phone+doorbell etc.
| switched off would be close to max. Sitting at a live concert (I
| am thinking classical) is up there too, because you've given
| yourself permission to not think of/work on anything else in that
| time. For music, we can say that the default settings are too
| LOW.
|
| And similar to the point OP made, you get more out of it when you
| attend more closely. And similarly, most music does not withstand
| this level of scrutiny.
| The_President wrote:
| I've taken the time to rebuild a large music collection
| locally. I've adopted every CD collection my friends and family
| have set aside to rust. It's immensely satisfying to scroll a
| gigantic list of 40,000 tracks and just pick whatever feels
| good, knowing I'm not contributing to a profile on my listening
| habits and that the file will instantly play flawlessly.
|
| I have some excellent garage band CDs that probably have two or
| three copies still in the wild at most. Unfortunately sometimes
| the 25 year old burned CDs are missing the TOC data, but even
| the recovery process is satisfying.
|
| (Same with the DVD collections.)
| nemo1618 wrote:
| You certainly do _not_ need to play music at the speed the
| performer intended! There are whole genres (and subgenres)
| based on this. :) Personally, I have found that slowing a
| familiar piece down by ~5% tricks my brain into perceiving it
| as novel again, which helps me attend to it more closely and
| appreciate it more.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Them being entire genres, to me, implies they are no longer
| the same music. You are listening to a different song.
| tetha wrote:
| I was about to comment this as well.
|
| I listen to a lot of music on the side, but Chris Boltendahl of
| Grave Digger said something that stuck with me. Btw, Grave
| Digger are not making Heavy Metal inspired by Heavy Metal, they
| were there making Heavy Metal in the 80s :)
|
| Paraphrasing: With all of the streaming, and easy access to
| music, music has turned into a fast food. Eaten on the side,
| but rarely really fully appreciated this day.
|
| And for new albums of bands I follow (or if I want to have a
| good time), I do exactly that: If the weather permits, get a
| hammock, a good drink, the good headphones (yes, I have several
| levels of quality of headphones), and just look at the sun, the
| trees and the magpies while listening to the music. Improving
| my own guitar skills has only deepened this appreciation.
|
| > Sitting at a live concert (I am thinking classical) is up
| there too, because you've given yourself permission to not
| think of/work on anything else in that time
|
| At least in Metal and to me, concerts are a different beast
| than the record. The record is usually the best and most
| perfect take of a song, often with additional effects, better
| mix. If you want to hear to the best version of a song, it's
| usually from the record.
|
| Concerts are a party. It's always amusing how different concert
| cultures are there -- I know of some people who complain that
| they "can't hear the singer over someone next to them
| shouting". That's kind of the point of a live celebration of
| the band at the music in my world.
| lesostep wrote:
| You actually can slow down music. A novel experience in itself.
| When you try to learn the song -- once you get a grip -
| everything slows. That's why people play so much with metronome
| - once your brain "slows down", you will speed up naturally.
| Spent a few months learning how to get around it as a novice
| drummer. The only way around I found? It's to notice the
| slowing speed of time and slow the rhythm into it. Probably
| related: most drummers play with a click in their ears.
|
| I noticed similar effects when "locking in" in games or sports.
| Time gets slower.
|
| So when you slow down, you start to pay more attention. But if
| you pay more attention, the world itself will slow down. And
| the music would be slowed
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| One of the pleasures of reading literature is noticing how
| compressed they are.
|
| This is true for Tolkien, Turgenev, Hemingway or Pound. The
| amount of information per page--per word!--is incredibly high,
| which permits the conveyance of ideas which simply do not land
| when spoken more plainly.
|
| You don't need to go to high literature to find this density, by
| the way. Political speeches from Republican Rome and America's
| Founders have a similar aspect to them.
| xeonmc wrote:
| And presumably political speeches from Republican America
| combines the best of those two?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _presumably political speeches from Republican America
| combines the best of those two?_
|
| Why?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| It's interesting you mention that. Even Obamas detractors admit
| he spoke well. True, but i find JFKs speeches are on a
| different level from that. And it's not just him, but the
| contrast is particularly striking.
|
| Now in the UK all we get are monotonous robots or people who
| have clearly had intensive coaching in how to speak in a clear.
| Decisive. Direct. Way, to inspire confidence and project
| competence. The two qualities entirely absent in most of our
| politicians.
|
| The less said about the other side of the pond the better.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Even Obamas detractors admit he spoke well. True, but i
| find JFKs speeches are on a different level from that. And
| it's not just him, but the contrast is particularly striking.
|
| My off the cuff observation is that there is a lot less
| mastery of language than there used to be in America. I'm not
| really sure why, but compare the grand language used by the
| early political leaders to, say, Obama, and it's striking.
| And that's not saying Obama is a bad speaker! He has a ton of
| charisma and makes you want to like his ideas by the way he
| presents them. But he's never given something on the level of
| Lincoln's Gettysburg address (in my opinion at least).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _never given something on the level of Lincoln 's
| Gettysburg address (in my opinion at least)_
|
| I'm arguing he couldn't have. Until America regains a
| literary tradition, the complexity and imagery gained with
| heavy words is lost against the conciseness soundbites
| demand.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Not just America. But it's partly a cultural thing. If
| someone would imitate the style of a century ago, he would
| be mocked for it and considered a self indulgent show off.
| The best example i can bring is Jacob Reese Mogg, otherwise
| known as The Rt Hon Gentleman from the 18th century.
|
| One thing that is thankfully unique to America is that
| rudeness as a debating tactic can win elections.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm no expert in other country's politics, but it would
| be pretty surprising if that was unique to America. Boris
| Johnson? Nicolas Sarkozy? Silvio Berlusconi?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Not even close. The nearest equivalent is Prime Ministers
| Questions which is a regular staged event.
|
| Look at the debates from 2015 where Trumps opponents are
| rendered speechless by his overbearing personality. He
| makes himself the centre of everything and is completely
| shameless about it. He's an American phenomenon. BUT, the
| reason it works is because he means what he says and does
| what he says he'll do. America has always appreciated
| straight talkers more then Europe.
| ben_w wrote:
| Jacob Reese Mogg isn't only mocked for being
| anachronistic, but also extreme poshness. That he went
| canvasing with someone he called his nanny is one such
| noteworthy oddity.
| ben_w wrote:
| > I'm not really sure why, but compare the grand language
| used by the early political leaders to, say, Obama, and
| it's striking.
|
| IMO that's a direct consequence of becoming a real
| democracy: can't just target those rich enough to get a
| fancy education.
|
| IIRC, the land ownership requirements had already gone by
| the time of Lincoln's Gettysburg address, but I expect them
| to have still been writing with such an audience in mind.
| fluoridation wrote:
| My experience has been the exact opposite. Yes, there's
| literally a lot of information, but so much of it is irrelevant
| fluff that could be eliminated or trimmed without losing much.
| I've seen multiple paragraphs of Tolkien, for example, that
| narratively boil down to "they walk across the field". To be
| clear, I don't see that as a flaw. The fluff serves to set the
| mood. But that's different from saying that the text is
| especially information-dense.
| watwut wrote:
| The "mood" is the information too.
| fluoridation wrote:
| That's not really "information" in the information-
| theoretic sense that the other person was using, when it
| can be rewritten in all manner of different ways while
| conveying the same overall mood. The densest way to
| communicate "Sam and Frodo walk across the plain towards
| Mt. Doom. They're both really tired" is exactly that. All
| the other words one would write around that core idea would
| not provide any more specificity to the sentiment, they'd
| just there to allow the reader to immerse themselves.
| Unless the information is simply the words themselves, in
| which case no text is any more entropic than any other.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _The densest way to communicate "Sam and Frodo walk
| across the plain towards Mt. Doom. They're both really
| tired" is exactly that_
|
| Uh, yes. This is press-release speak, optimised for a
| fourth grader's reading comprehension.
|
| If, on the other hand, you want to develop the motif of
| the Unseen--central to Tolkien's work--the _type_ of
| tired the characters are and how they're detecting and
| addressing it is incredibly germane, interesting and
| totally lost in your summary.
|
| You're also describing the first scenes we see through
| familiar eyes of Mordor. The landscape is an extension of
| Sauron's will. The contrast with the developed,
| organised, albeit crowded cities of men; the arrogance
| implied in the desolation; _et cetera_ pack information
| lost in your summary.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _so much of it is irrelevant fluff that could be eliminated
| or trimmed without losing much_
|
| Are you sure? Or is that just superfluous for the way you're
| reading it?
|
| In some cases, it's overly verbose. But if you're taking this
| away from acclaimed authors, consider picking up some
| literary criticism (fancy words for fan theories). Chances
| are, there is meaning embedded in what you're dismissing as
| fluff.
| katzgrau wrote:
| I had, by chance, taken the same approach when reading the Zen
| and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance years ago.
|
| The title failed to inspire but I heard it was worth the read and
| stepped through line by line.
|
| It hit with a depth that I know with complete certainty I would
| not have gotten if I worked through at my usual pace or took it
| in as an audiobook.
|
| Nassim Taleb's books are also favorite slow reads of mine.
|
| All this said, I collect books faster than I can read them so
| there's always a feeling somewhere that I should be pushing
| through a little faster.
|
| Ah well, in the end I think that really comprehending a handful
| of quality books is about as good as a shallow comprehension of
| many more.
| chihuahua wrote:
| After I finished reviewing the CS textbook "Computer
| Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" in the mid 1990s during a
| vacation (looking for errors before publication), I found that my
| brain had been permanently reconfigured for speed reading. For
| years afterwards, I would automatically read entire sentences at
| a time, to go as fast as possible. I think I have now recovered
| sufficiently so that I can read books one word at a time.
| cush wrote:
| Being able to truly tap into boredom is a superpower
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| > I've found reading aloud helpful for staying engaged --
| limiting myself to mouth-speed rather than eye-speed means I
| won't rush, miss important details, and then lose interest, which
| has always been a problem for me.
|
| This worked for me... for a time. And then what happened
| surprised me (but maybe shouldn't have): I started zoning out and
| thinking about other things, missing important details, _while_
| reading aloud. Wild that we can even do that.
| neutronicus wrote:
| It's a capability with which having children will make you
| intimately familiar
| bell-cot wrote:
| By the 3rd week of _Goodnight Moon_ at bedtime, are you still
| reading the printed words?
| wombatpm wrote:
| Throw in an occasional Goodnight Opus and learn to depart
| from the text
| esafak wrote:
| No, because the kid has learned to anticipate what's to
| come, and reading it becomes a game or performance art.
| Yodel0914 wrote:
| I initially thought this was just a function of reading the
| same thing multiple times, but I've since had it happen many
| times when reading something completely new. Somehow my mind
| wanders and when I tune back in, not only am I reading
| clearly, I'm still doing the voicing for different
| characters. It's so weird.
| fluoridation wrote:
| I haven't had it happen while reading aloud (since I almost
| never read aloud), but I've definitely had it happen while
| reading something new that I hated. I'd end up having to
| read the same page (or more!) three or four times because I
| kept zoning out.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I can't control the speed that I read.
|
| In fact, I noticed that whenever a book becomes most exciting, I
| start reading especially fast (to the point of skipping words),
| because I want to know what happens next. So I spend the least
| time with the best parts of the best books.
|
| Ever since I realized that, I have switched pretty much
| exclusively to audiobooks. I don't really know if it's faster or
| slower overall, but it's a predetermined pace, and that works
| better for me.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Audiobooks are great, while driving or walking or riding a
| bike. But for complex topics, I miss the ability to read a
| sentence or a paragraph again.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| This is definitely a disadvantage of audiobooks, although
| I've found having access to a `skip backwards 15 seconds`
| button can help a lot.
|
| (There was one point during _Riyria Revelations_ where a
| character was explaining how Elven succession works. After
| repeating the sequence a bunch of times, I finally had to get
| out my laptop and take notes.)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I feel the same way. It goes away if I already know what's
| going to happen. For this reason I strongly recommend reading
| the things you love a second time.
| underdeserver wrote:
| Have you made a serious effort to try lately? I think it should
| be possible for everyone.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Yes.
| hx8 wrote:
| > I can't control the speed that I read.
|
| For me, moving my lips while reading is a surefire way to
| significantly slow down the pace. I do this all the time when
| giving a document a final proofread before publishing.
| fluoridation wrote:
| I do something similar, only keeping my lips shut and moving
| my tongue and throat as if I was speaking. I find it's an
| intermediate speed between conversation speed and purely
| reading with my eyes. I started doing it when I wasn't so
| good at English to give myself time to understand the text,
| as well as to practice the mechanics of English speech when I
| didn't have anyone, but I find keeping me at this pace gives
| me maximum comprehension. I have a friend who reads much
| faster than me and he quite often misses points in whatever
| he's reading. I think he got into that habit from literature,
| but it's disastrous when reading something more densely
| packed with information, like technical documentation.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Oh, I forgot to mention--reading out loud (silently or not)
| does work, but then I find it difficult to actually pay
| attention to what I'm reading.
|
| Like you, I do proofread this way, and for that it works
| well.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I see that some others have suggested getting an Audio book
| version for you to listen to at your pleasure.
|
| I came here to say "I hope that you are recording yourself so
| that you create your OWN audiobook"
| skybrian wrote:
| When learning to play a musical instrument and practicing a new
| song, some common advice is to play it as slowly as you can
| stand, to learn the motions well.
| raylad wrote:
| Or, never play it faster than you can play it perfectly.
| hurflmurfl wrote:
| Right, but then you need to learn the _right_ motions well,
| motions that will make sense at the final speed. I suppose it
| 's one of those things that are made easier by having a
| teacher.
| nabbed wrote:
| This can work with the way you think as well.
|
| Many years ago, I had a technical manager who never felt any
| pressure to be the first to come up with the answer to a question
| or the solution to some problem. If I was having a technical
| conversation with him, and we arrived at a particularly subtle or
| complex issue, he could go completely silent, just staring
| straight ahead with his fingers to his lips. I would find it very
| uncomfortable, and I would start blurting out half-baked ideas to
| fill the silence, but he would either raise his finger or
| (usually) just ignore me. This could go on for 30-60 seconds, at
| which point he might shrug and say "I don't know" or, more
| likely, have a pretty well formed idea of how to move ahead.
|
| I used to joke to my co-workers that during those silent
| interludes, he was swapping in the solution from a remote disk.
|
| This manager also typed with one or two fingers, and pretty
| slowly too. But he wrote a lot of good code.
| godelski wrote:
| > he might shrug and say "I don't know"
|
| I have far more trust for people willing to say this.
| > I would start blurting out half-baked ideas to fill the
| silence
|
| I find that I'm more likely to do this but try to make an
| effort to stop. There's times to spitball but we should also
| spend time thinking. And let's be real 30-60s is not that long
| > This manager also typed with one or two fingers, and pretty
| slowly too. But he wrote a lot of good code.
|
| I'll be honest, this is the big reason I don't get all the hype
| around coding agents. I do find them useful but typing isn't
| the bottleneck. Not even close. Plus, while typing is when I'm
| doing my best debugging and best simplifying.
| bigiain wrote:
| If shrug-guy is anything like me, he sat there blurting out
| half-baked ideas and then shooting them down all in his
| internal monologue, instead of out loud.
|
| For me, I sometimes feel like I'm an old school chess engine,
| exploring as many possible moves/ideas as I can - as many
| steps into the future as time allows. Constantly evaluating
| them based on some known-simplified fitness function usually
| involving pattern recognition from past experience in similar
| problems. Eventually I arrive at a place where I'm either
| confident I know a reasonable way forward (and why some of
| the obvious ways forward are unlikely to be ideal) - or I've
| scatter-gun searched all of the quickly available ideas and
| discovered I have no idea if some of them are good or bad,
| and I need to do much deeper research and investigation of
| the problem.
|
| From the outside, that'd look identical to "he could go
| completely silent, just staring straight ahead with his
| fingers to his lips"
| godelski wrote:
| Sure, but isn't there still an advantage to this? If two
| people are silently doing this then they don't influence
| one another as much, helping find a wider range of
| solutions as well as identify issues with certain solutions
| that the other might not have seen.
|
| Instead if you're blurting out your thinking more in
| unison. Naturally you'll stray less, exploring less.
|
| Of course you want collaboration but I find the magic is
| going back and forth between alone and together. I even
| find this helpful when just working by myself, stepping
| away from the problem or context switching, allowing the
| problem to distill.
| jaredsohn wrote:
| Another way to think of it is if you're blurting out your
| thinking you're reducing redundant work and perhaps
| inspiring the other person to think of additional
| solutions that are offshoots of what you're dismissing. I
| see merits to both ways of looking at this.
| godelski wrote:
| Yeah I agree but that's why I think there's a balance.
| But the context here is the more nervous blurting which I
| think is going too much in the other direction. We should
| be comfortable with some silence and thinking.
|
| But everyone has their own personal preferences. Which is
| perfectly fine too. But I think it's worth mentioning
| that, as illustrated by the comment, it's typically more
| acceptable to blurt than think silently. And there's the
| bias that blurting makes it harder to think silently by
| thinking silently doesn't make blurting harder (the
| uncomfortable with some silence part is not healthy imo.
| Of course long silence is a different issue but we're
| talking 30-60s)
| vnorilo wrote:
| Probably true for many. When thinking about hard problems
| I'm usually not thinking in language, at least not the
| kind we speak between us humans, so it can be incredibly
| distracting if I have to "translate" back and forth while
| both thinking and communicating.
| jcims wrote:
| I had the same thoughts reading this. I think there's an
| optimal blend of blurters and thinkers, one isn't better
| than the other. I find that I do both, it just kind of
| depends on my comfort with the subject matter.
| rgoulter wrote:
| > I'll be honest, this is the big reason I don't get all the
| hype around coding agents. I do find them useful but typing
| isn't the bottleneck. Not even close.
|
| It's always possible to go slower for practically no cost. --
| So, any benefit from going slower is obtainable for everyone.
|
| Whereas, typing faster takes discipline and effort. There are
| diminishing benefits to putting in more effort to type
| faster.
|
| The main benefit isn't so much "more output" so much as
| "reduced latency". e.g. It takes less time to type out
| queries that help you gather information.
| godelski wrote:
| > typing faster takes discipline and effort. >>
| ***typing isn't the bottleneck***
|
| I believe you read too fast > The main
| benefit isn't so much "more output" so much as "reduced
| latency". e.g. It takes less time to type out queries that
| help you gather information.
|
| You've missed the critical part of what I was saying.
|
| _While typing_ I 'm doing other things in parallel.
|
| Those other things are things that require you to
| scrutinize and look at each character. I think the vacuum
| analogy from the OP is quite apt here. It's much harder to
| debug other people's code and more so an LLMs.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| > typing isn't the bottleneck. Not even close.
|
| I find it absolutely is much of the time - I'll determine the
| architecture/overall solution, know exactly what needs to go
| in a multitude of files, and now actualizing all that isn't
| really thinking anymore, just donkey work. Getting AI to do
| this has been incredible now that it's finally good enough.
| I've had Copilot make flawless 500+LOC C++ classes in the
| first pass, and when I introduced bugs by changing it by
| hand, it found them instantly from stack traces without even
| having symbols, saving me hours. I see a future where writing
| a large codebase all by hand is seen like raising a barn the
| Amish way with no powertools - impressive and maybe there's
| something to be said for it philosophically, but just not
| practical otherwise.
| anhner wrote:
| > I've had Copilot make flawless 500+LOC C++ classes in the
| first pass
|
| Lmao, please tell me what products you're working on so I
| can avoid them
| typewithrhythm wrote:
| How often are you actually doing this though? I think I
| probably work in something greenfield about once a decade.
| The hard part is always going down a rabbit hole in
| established code bases. I can do the boilerplate in a few
| days. It saves time, but not really even one hairy issue a
| year.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| > The hard part is always going down a rabbit hole in
| established code bases.
|
| Actually, I found that this is exactly where they shine
| (I wouldn't trust them with greenfield implementation
| myself). Exploring existing code is so much easier when
| you can ask them how something works. You can even ask
| them to find problems - you can't trust them to be
| correct, of course, but at least you get some good
| brainstorming going. And, incredibly, they often do find
| actual problems in the code. Pretty impressive for
| language models.
| elxr wrote:
| Nowadays? 4+ times a week. I want to learn as much as I
| can now that I essentially have 24/7 mentors that can
| remember everything I've told them.
|
| Sure, I could write it all by hand; but even as a decent
| typer, I'll never match a tenth speed of claude code or
| opencode just GOING. Maybe there's a better way to learn,
| but whatever it is, it's not obvious to me.
| godelski wrote:
| How long have you been programming?
|
| I actually felt like I learned the most when I stopped
| going to Google and StackOverflow for solutions and
| instead moved to docs. It's far less direct but the
| information is much more rich. All that auxiliary
| information compounds. I want to skip it, feeling rushed
| to get an answer, but I've always been the better for
| taking the "scenic route". I'd then play around and learn
| how to push functions and abuse them. Boy there's no
| learning like learning how to abuse code.
|
| Fwiw, I do use LLMs, but they don't write code for me.
| They are fantastic rubber ducky machines. Far better than
| my cat, which is better than an actual rubber duck. They
| aid in docs too, helping fill in that space when you
| don't exactly understand them. But don't let them do the
| hard work nor the boring work. The boring work is where
| you usually learn the most. It's also the time you don't
| recognize that's happening
| elxr wrote:
| Close to 5 years. I read docs too and love the immersion
| and the fully grasping of concepts when going with your
| route, but most days there's just not enough hours for
| this.
|
| > The boring work is where you usually learn the most.
| It's also the time you don't recognize that's happening
|
| That was always how I did it before mid-2025. And I do
| still do boring work when I truly want to master
| something, but doing that too much just means (for me)
| not finishing anything.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| If you use that much time for donkey work, you are using
| the wrong tools. If it is so simple so that can delegate it
| to a LLM, you need to use a language with more expressive
| power.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There's no such language, sans Lisp with extreme use of
| macros.
|
| Here's an alternative take: if typing isn't a bottleneck
| for you, and you don't experience coding as being donkey
| work, _you are thinking too slow, and /or in too small
| increments_.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I find however, that while typing it all out, my mind often
| continues analyzing and thinking, and that I often find a
| new idea, or new structure, that might be even better.
| Typing it out and seeing it appear in front of me. It also
| gives me a feeling for how tedious, brittle, or annoying
| the solution is.
|
| Granted, sometimes it's really not that interesting to type
| the stuff. It depends what one is working on.
| godelski wrote:
| Each time I write a routine it's different. Its better.
| I've learned something from last time. In fact, this is
| one of the things that got me hooked on computing. That
| there's so much complexity, often hidden, that there's
| always more to learn and improve upon.
|
| And truth be told, if I'm writing the same thing many
| times it's time to create a library. Maybe just for
| myself or for the company I work for. But the same thing
| happens. I always learn more while doing it and it always
| gets better.
|
| I fear the programmer whose bottleneck is typing. They
| already know the answer. But the problem is that there is
| none
| Quothling wrote:
| > I'll be honest, this is the big reason I don't get all the
| hype around coding agents. I do find them useful but typing
| isn't the bottleneck. Not even close. Plus, while typing is
| when I'm doing my best debugging and best simplifying.
|
| As you sort of point out between the lines, it depends on
| what you work on. I had an AI agent rewrite some ancient (and
| terrible code) which had stopped working because the v1 of an
| api on v3 was sunset. It took around 5 minutes out of my day,
| and most of those were having two people explaining to me
| where the code was and what they thought had happened to make
| it break. It would've like taken me a full day to fix without
| AI because I would have needed to understand things first,
| and because it was quite a lot of code.
|
| The result wasn't very good, but it was better than what was
| before, and since that had run for years without anyone
| tuching it, well... good enough. Heck, it might've taken me
| more than a day because I doubt I would have left it at
| "wasn't very good".
|
| Aside from this anecdote I think AI writes a good 80% of my
| code these days. I'm not sure I buy the whole "bottleneck or
| not" discussion around typing. I think for a lot of people,
| myself included, AI does 10x part of the process of writing
| software. Where it doesn't help is when you need to do
| computer science, and as you point out, those parts AI don't
| speed up. I sometimes still use AI for computer science
| parts, but in those situations the AI will be a rubber duck
| because I tend to think by talking out my own ideas, and at
| least the AI duck pretends to answer. Even if the answer is
| more useless than what the actual rubber duck comes up with,
| which it usually is, it's more immersive for me.
| godelski wrote:
| > because I doubt I would have left it at "wasn't very
| good".
|
| Which creates an interesting question. Would that extra
| time be worth it because your version would break less, do
| more, and/or last longer?
|
| Don't get me wrong, we all write sloppy code and often not
| our best. It's one of the difficulties of being an
| engineer, deciding what exactly is good enough.
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| I often do this in meetings and have gotten into the habit of
| saying "I'm thinking". It's not much but it gives both of us
| time to think and explicitly makes it clear I don't expect the
| person to say something. I think that helps.
| fgonzag wrote:
| I just blurt out "processing" when they start looking at me
| weird. People tend to take it well.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Fair enough, I do like parent's a bit better, "blurting
| processing" feels like a too high default setting right
| after seeing "I'm thinking" :) - not that any of it matters
| anyways, communicating _something_ gets you there. Rest it
| just triaging around the edges what people will call you
| weird for, and if they are, they were going to anyway.
| underdeserver wrote:
| I read this at first as "I just blurt out "processing" and
| people look at me weird", which made me smile.
| oldestofsports wrote:
| "Thinking longer for a better answer"
| elxr wrote:
| "Give me a second" is something I say when someone just has
| to break the silence with some unproductive comment. Having
| 20-30 seconds to think silently should be a completely normal
| thing.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I that once in a technical interview and got the job (just
| paused for 30 seconds until the answer came to me). I think
| they expected a 15 minute process of problem solving.
|
| If I recall correctly the question was something like:
|
| You are sitting recording cars by their license plate as they
| drive down a road. You only have N spots on your worksheet. You
| can overwrite spots as many times as you need to. By the end of
| the day you must have an unbiased sampling of cars that have
| driven by you. How do you record the cars?
| bart__ wrote:
| Nice statistical problem! I only thought of a solution that
| is valid for many cars and few worksheet spots. Were you able
| to fully solve it on the spot?
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| What other situations are you concerned with that your
| solution doesn't handle?
| bart__ wrote:
| The best solution I could think of on the spot was this:
| First write down every license place until it fills up.
| Then for each time a car drives by, give it a 1/2 chance
| to write it down. Moving down the list regardless of the
| outcome. Then once the bottom is reached, do it again but
| with 1/3 a chance. Over and over again, decreasing the
| chance each time.
|
| I checked for which situations it is valid, and it
| surprisingly was when there are many more cars than the
| list size. But it is not valid when there are just a few
| more cars than the list size.
| augustk wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservoir_sampling
| barrell wrote:
| I do this a lot as well. I have a bad habit of just freezing
| physically when I start to think. Since my work is conducted
| over video, my colleagues will often think I dropped off the
| call XD
|
| Personally I find it a bad habit of mine, I have no idea how
| people gracefully take time to think. Whenever I do say
| something like "hold on, let me just think for a moment" my
| brain completely freezes and I get no thinking done.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| I think it gets at something we've collectively trained
| ourselves out of: tolerating silence while thinking
| avalys wrote:
| I worked with a guy that operated like this, a technical expert
| in a very specialized domain. You'd ask him a question - he'd
| just stare at you in silence for 60s or more, and then give a
| very well-considered answer that you couldn't get from anyone
| else in the world.
|
| His manager was used to this and sort of enjoyed the mystique
| of this monk-like expert that he was responsible for.
|
| I once was in a meeting where we had to talk to the great
| expert on the phone. Let's just say his name was Otto. Of
| course, he worked remote quite often, in the days before Zoom.
| His manager calls him and puts the phone on speakerphone for
| the room to hear.
|
| Manager: Otto, we need your input on <long technical problem>.
|
| _< 60 seconds of silence>_
|
| Otto: Yes, I think that might work, but you'll run into <other
| problems>.
|
| Manager: Well, yes, we've considered that, but <explanation>
|
| A few minutes of reasonably normal conversation ensues between
| the assembled group and Otto. Then:
|
| Manager: Well, I think then that this is a pretty good
| solution, as long as Otto agrees.
|
| _Manager looks around the table, clearly waiting for Otto 's
| concurrence_
|
| _< 60 seconds of silence>_
|
| _< 90 seconds of silence>_
|
| _< 120 seconds of silence>_
|
| _People are starting to get uncomfortable. The manager makes a
| reassuring face. This is normal for those of us that work
| closely with the great expert, do not lose faith._
|
| _< 240 seconds of silence>_
|
| _Manager briefly lets slip a concerned look, then quickly
| hides it_
|
| _< 360 seconds of silence>_
|
| Manager: Um, Otto?
|
| Otto: Oh, I thought I was waiting for you.
| fleebee wrote:
| I suffered a burnout fall last year and adapting to a slower
| lifestyle was my way out of it. I started reading long novels,
| and taking aimless, leisurely walks. It's hard to overstate the
| positive effect that had on my mind and well-being. I haven't
| felt this kind of mental clarity and motivation to do things for
| over a decade.
|
| This post resonates strongly with me. I strongly believe the
| default settings _are_ too high, and it takes conscious effort to
| slow down while bound to the shackles of modern society, but it's
| so worth it.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to the general point, but with food, you can
| always just eat more! Best of both worlds!
| mtoner23 wrote:
| ????
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| If you read the lord of the rings faster, you run out of lord
| or the rings sooner -- there's no away around this. But if
| you eat faster, you can just eat more food. You can eat just
| as long, and end up feeling just as full. There is no need to
| eat slower to prolong the enjoyment of flavor.
| jackschultz wrote:
| Quote that I always like:
|
| There was a man who was afraid of his shadow and disliked his
| footprints. So he tried to get away from them. He ran, but the
| faster he ran, the more numerous his footprints became, and his
| shadow kept up with him without lagging behind. Thinking he was
| going too slowly, he ran faster and faster, until he collapsed
| and died of exhaustion. He did not realize that if he had simply
| stayed in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared, and if he
| had sat still, there would have been no footprints.
|
| And another one [0]:
|
| My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest; Every year the green
| ivy grows longer. No news of the affairs of men, Only the
| occasional song of a woodcutter. The sun shines and I mend my
| robe; When the moon comes out I read Buddhist poems. I have
| nothing to report, my friends. If you want to find the meaning,
| stop chasing after so many things.
|
| [0] https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/06/stop-
| chasing...
| didgetmaster wrote:
| If you are bilingual, with one language being stronger than the
| other one; try reading something in the language you are least
| comfortable with. I do this (e.g. reading LoTR in Dutch) and it
| forces me to pay closer attention to each sentence.
|
| There are words you don't know or know how to use them properly.
| It will help you learn the second language better, while also
| helping you to not gloss over whole passages.
| hibikir wrote:
| I'd argue that the issue isn't that the default is too high, but
| that we assume the default. Think a math class: Often enough,
| kids are left behind, because the pace is too high, but others
| get bored to tears, because for them, that very same pace is far
| too slow. It can even vary by unit: Maybe someone is fine at
| standard speed in most of AP physics, and just one unit is just
| completely off. It's a typical problem when engaging with varied
| audiences: If you have to give a talk to , say, an all hands of a
| tech company, getting the pacing and the information density
| right for everyone is just not going to happen.
|
| So the main learning is to be aware of the speed settings, and
| then consider putting ourselves in situations where we can alter
| them. Faster or slower isn't better in a vacuum. Expermiment and
| find what's right for you, or, in communication, for your
| audience.
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| What worked for us professionally, voraciously taking in
| information, might be less effective going forward. Being more
| judicious in consuming fewer, high-quality sources of content is
| likely to work better in the age of AI slop.
| scrame wrote:
| Seriously, we're just posting self-help grifters now?
| Yodel0914 wrote:
| There was nothing grifter-ish about this article that I could
| detect - what are you seeing that I'm missing?
| trevor-e wrote:
| This was the same epiphany I had in college when I learned how to
| actually study. Previously I would try to go fast and cram as
| much as possible into my head and hope my decent memory could
| save me. That only got me so far. I eventually realized that
| slowing down to fully comprehend what I was learning before
| allowing myself to move on yielded much better results and saved
| a lot more time in the long run. And as a result my grades shot
| up.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Stories don't exist on paper or even on screen. They exist in the
| space in between words in your mind.
| stephen_cagle wrote:
| tldr; I found something similar when I forced myself to slow down
| on "The Wheel of Time" series recently.
|
| I've been reading the Wheel of Time (started by Robert Jordan,
| ended by Brandon Sanderson). I'm on book 11 currently. I've found
| something similar in that the Jordan's later books in the WOT are
| basically just incredible slogs if you read for completion
| (which, I myself did around 20 years ago at around book 10, where
| I stopped). Around book 6 or so I purposely slowed down and
| started really imagine the scenes in my minds eye. I also keep
| the map open on my phone and just kind of keep note of where they
| are at different points in the series.
|
| Obvious, but it is really striking how much better his books are
| when you try to "live in the moment" of your imagination as you
| read, rather than reading to move the plot and action forward. I
| was kind of confused with myself when I reflected on it. That I
| somehow thought it made more sense to skim through an entire
| series and take reduced pleasure from something, when I could
| just take 50% longer and actually enjoy it.
|
| Made me wonder about where else I am doing this in my life.
|
| I still thinks these books are radically overpadded. He was
| clearly in love with his characters and his setting. He needed
| the guidance of a strong armed editor imho. With all that said,
| if you are going to commit to reading a massive series like this,
| you might as well appreciate it in the moment, you are going to
| be here a while.
| niccl wrote:
| This is one of the things I actually remember my mother saying.
| Festina lente [0]: Make haste slowly. I've always tried to stick
| to it because when I have I've found more to appreciate in
| whatever I'm doing (as TFA says)
|
| Sadly, for some reason I now can't read slowly, which pisses me
| off. I and my partner read aloud together alternating chapters of
| a chosen book, and I love how get _much_ more out of the book
| than I would reading alone in a tenth of the time.
|
| I've also found that some books seem written to be read aloud:
| the sentence structure and punctuation lends itself to easy
| reading aloud, whereas some books have really convoluted
| sentences with multiple parenthetical sub-clauses that are a real
| challenge to read aloud in an a way that's easy to follow. I've
| ended up so that normally try to write in a way that's easy to
| read aloud. I think if something's easy to read aloud it's going
| to be easy to comprehend when read normally. And Yes, I know that
| the sentence at the beginning of the paragraph probably doesn't
| match that.
|
| 0: (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/festina%20lente)
| snowwrestler wrote:
| This is why I re-read books. I've read the Lord of the Rings
| probably like 10 times. When I already know what's going to
| happen it's easier for me to slow down and appreciate the scenery
| along the way. Even later readings might reveal choices the
| author made; I can start to see how the story was constructed.
|
| I find this approach rewarding across most forms of media. There
| plenty of movies and music I've revisited over and over again.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| When I was younger I also re-read _The Lord of the Rings_
| perhaps a dozen times. Each reading did seem to land
| differently--small details I had not noticed the first n times.
|
| For some reason the first half of the first book appealed to me
| the most. I liked the leaving, the setting out on an adventure
| that you know not where it will lead you.
|
| After Rivendell the hobbits no longer seemed to be driving.
| spicyusername wrote:
| It might sound like I'm just offering cliches - less is more,
| stop and smell the roses, take your time - and I guess I am. But
| cliches suffer the same issue: they are often profound insights,
| consumed and passed on too rapidly for their real meaning to
| register anymore. You really should stop and smell roses, as you
| know if you're in the habit of doing that.
|
| Great quote
| dbacar wrote:
| What were you expecting, when all al the system forced you to buy
| more, consume fast and die hard ?
|
| The author just scratches the surface.
| fkarg wrote:
| The base material needs to be of a minimum quality for that
| experience to be enjoyable, I presume. I totally see the value of
| that, which is one of the reasons to sometimes reduce playback
| speed below what my default would be. Writings from Tolkien are
| maybe some of the best suited for that, but I'm not 100%
| convinced it would work for what I'm reading currently, so I
| might just try it anyway - the Foundation series from Asimov.
| zdc1 wrote:
| Great article. Living and enjoying life is a skill that needs
| conscious practice and intentionality.
|
| The title would make more sense as the default settings being
| "too low" since Low is the setting where when we trade off
| fidelity for speed, but "too high" has a nice ring to it.
| Tepix wrote:
| This us why I consider sailing to be the best way of travelling
| the world: You're slow to begin with and the wind dictates your
| plans. You really don't want to be motoring. Instead you have
| time to experience the land, the people and the ocean. Preferably
| without being online constantly.
| ervine wrote:
| This is why I love cycling so much.
| Tepix wrote:
| I'm wondering if using an electric caravan is a similarly
| good option for slow travelling on land. It would force you
| to you stop after less than 300 kilometers, unfold the solar
| panels on the roof, wait a day or two (perhaps also catch
| some rain using the roof) and then continue.
|
| Another, less romantic option would be to recharge it
| somewhere faster ;-)
| throwfaraway135 wrote:
| I think this is reading using System 2 instead of System 1. And
| as System 2 is much more detail oriented, it makes sense that you
| would notice a lot more.
| zonghao wrote:
| When I use Claude Code and Codex for development, I've had some
| similar experiences. Claude Code always completes tasks very
| quickly, but leaves behind a mess that makes me anxious. Codex,
| on the other hand, is always slow--it slowly reads through the
| entire project's code, then makes changes very cautiously,
| testing and verifying after every small modification, and even
| calls codex review --uncommitted once more before committing.
|
| At first, I found writing code with Claude Code to be enjoyable,
| while Codex seemed boring. But over time, I've discovered that I
| actually prefer Codex. Perhaps slowing down really is the key to
| writing high-quality code.
| throw310822 wrote:
| > When you slow down your eating speed, say to half or a third
| your default speed, you get much more enjoyment out of a smaller
| amount of food. The extra attention given to each bite allows
| more of the "good stuff," whatever that is exactly, to reach you.
|
| I wonder if this contributes to a good chunk of the experience of
| fine dining. When you get served expensive food in micro-portions
| that are accompanied by long explanations, you don't gobble it
| down but take as much time as possible to savour it.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| For a while I've thought so many of us are afraid to slow down
| because we might feel sad, as sadness is often one of the
| slowest emotions.
|
| Yet this quote has me thinking that maybe we fear slowing down
| because of the consciousness overload. That we get so
| overwhelmed by our senses. Maybe even that can lead to the
| tears of being so alive.
| ultratalk wrote:
| I feel like this advice could also somewhat apply to your manner
| of speaking. I'm a pretty fast speaker, and I've noticed that
| when I try my best to go slower, I understand what I'm trying to
| say better, I figure out gaps in logic and errors in the sentence
| while speaking, instead of after, and I get the message across
| better. And when I'm giving an impromptu speech of some sort, if
| I slow down and think about every sentence I say, the sentences
| stitch themselves together in a better-flowing way, and I enjoy
| speaking because it sounds better.
| amunozo wrote:
| I, too, speak ridiculously fast. People laugh at me and some (a
| lot of) people have problems understanding me. As much as I
| try, as soon as I am not paying attention I speak at the same
| pace again. Did you manage to slow down your speech
| consistently?
| ultratalk wrote:
| I did! It took me a few months though. You just have to work
| at it a lot and be very conscious of your speech.
| amunozo wrote:
| Thanks! I will keep trying then. I was starting to assume
| that was me and that's it.
| gste wrote:
| By coincidence I also finished The Fellowship of the Ring about
| two weeks ago.
|
| I have always had the intuition about reading speed that it is
| very easy to be a speed reader if you skim over things. I've
| always questioned how much of speed reading is just skipping
| stuff and filtering for the most important word tokens.
|
| You could skip all of Tolkien's scenery descriptions, you could
| skip Tom Bombadil and Lothlorien and still know basically what
| happened to Frodo and where he's going. But that's not really the
| point. When I read a book of that much importance, I've always
| read every word and understood every sentence. I get easily
| distracted and often have to reread passages. I am not a fast
| reader. Tolkien's descriptions are not always that easy. But this
| is what I find so rewarding about reading in the first place.
|
| However, when I'm reading an article online, the difference is
| stark. When I read articles, I usually start from the bottom and
| read backwards. That's my way of finding out the results, and
| then piecing together how much context I actually need to
| understand it. Maybe I should slow that down sometimes.
| delis-thumbs-7e wrote:
| Although people think LoTR as a novel meant for younger people,
| it certainly is not an Tolkien never meant it that way and it
| certainly is not an easy text. It is far more complex than any
| fantasy I have ever come across. Tolkien was a top language
| scholar who spoke several even dead languages, so there's a lot
| more going on than just the surface plot of Frodo "returning"
| Bilbo's ring. One would be mad to simply skim it through.
| notahacker wrote:
| > Tolkien was a top language scholar who spoke several even
| dead languages, so there's a lot more going on than just the
| surface plot of Frodo "returning" Bilbo's ring.
|
| If you want to see it then way Tolkien saw it, probably the
| best way is to get through all that unimportant stuff
| involving rings and battles as quickly as possible to get to
| the appendices where Tolkein spent his time thinking about
| the history and etymology and even neat little details like
| how the calendar worked in the Shire...
|
| (I'm only half joking)
| jahnu wrote:
| > One would be mad to simply skim it through.
|
| Reminds me of an ah-ha! moment I had as a kid playing a text
| adventure game on my C64. I was stuck for a while and tried
| to find alternative ways forwards. I typed in "cheat" and it
| replied "OK, you win!" and ended the game.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| This is also possible in the first and second Monkey Island
| games, using hotkeys ctrl+W or maybe alt+W.
|
| The cheat code will immediately end your game while
| informing you that you scored 800 of 800 points (presumably
| a Sierra reference; this is the only way to score any
| number - including zero - of points).
|
| There's no particular reason you'd discover this while
| playing either game, but if you play the third one, a
| mandatory plot point will show the message "You lose. You
| scored 0 of 800 points," referring back to the obscure joke
| in the earlier games.
| jahnu wrote:
| Haha! Love it.
| qmr wrote:
| I don't know. I enjoyed it in tweens and high school,
| couldn't get into it again in later life.
| harshreality wrote:
| One might also argue that The Little Prince is "far more
| complex" and deeper than anything written at a typical adult
| reading level. That lower linguistic surface complexity
| allows more space for the reader to explore ideas and themes.
|
| I'm skeptical. Is there no more value to series like
| Gormenghast, Book of the New Sun, and The Second Apocalypse,
| beyond mere literary masochism, compared to LotR? Like them
| or not, LotR, as elaborate as its mythology is (if you
| include Silmarillion and some or all of the History of Middle
| Earth), is not at the same level.
| delis-thumbs-7e wrote:
| One would like to point out that the set {Gormenghast, Book
| of the New Sun, and The Second Apocalypse} is not a subset
| of {fantasy books I have come across}. I would not dare to
| claim that LoTR is the end all of all fantasy writing.
| Perhaps the word "complex" was a bad choice here, since I'm
| sure there is books with more complex structure (which is
| not necessarily a good thing...)
|
| I think what I tried to say is that the language Tolkien
| uses is as much or more part of the middle earth as are the
| characters, maps and whatnot. The obvious point is that he
| created whole new languages and writing systems for the
| book, basing the two Elvish languages on Finnish and Welsh
| etc. Other is that he changes his vocabulary depending on
| what he is describing. I am not a linguistic scholar, but
| I'm fairly vertain that at least in Two Towers the parts
| describing nature, forrests and whatnot use solely words
| that are celtic in origin, ie. no Latin influence and very
| old. There's also structural techniques of interwoven plots
| that I can't even start to unwind.
|
| Point being, you can very much read the book on surface
| level as Frodo and the Ring and Swords and lah-di-daa and
| that is all fine. That's how I read it when I was 12-13.
| But there is so much more, mastery of English language
| comparable only to Cormac McCarthy and Joyce... Here
| Tolkien is very much a singular writer, escaping the limits
| of genre he very much was essential in creating.
|
| So no wonder it is perhaps the most influential book of the
| 20th century.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I've read that Tolkien wrote There and Back Again / The
| Hobbit as a book for his children. Then he started writing
| what would become The Fellowship of The Ring for his kids,
| but he quickly realized that the story was taking many dark
| turns and that he was best served by moving away from writing
| it as a book for his kids.
| matsemann wrote:
| I think both ways of reading are fine. Sometimes you just want
| to get on with the plot, other times you want to immerse
| yourself. Or maybe you always just want to get on with the
| plot, which is fine, just don't complain about the book being
| boring, it just wasn't for you. Which is how I feel about Lotr.
| But at the same time, rushing over the songs, boring parts with
| Tom etc is also how I managed to make it work for me.
| photios wrote:
| I could see value in slowing down or re-reading crafted writing
| like Tolkien's. I've been doing that with St. Paul's epistles.
|
| There is no value in doing it for modern clickbait or AI slop
| though.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Speed reading absolutely works if the goal is "what happened
| and why," but Tolkien is a good reminder that plot is just the
| skeleton
| docmars wrote:
| I thought I was crazy for reading articles backwards, but it
| really does help to build a better picture of what's being
| shared or reported.
|
| I find that a lot of journalists like to pack their writing
| with fluff before they even reach the subject of the headline,
| a lot like recipe blogs sharing their life stories before
| finally reaching the instructions, as if the recipe is only
| secondary or tertiary to the background given.
|
| This is why I appreciate articles that include bullet points or
| a TL;DR right at the beginning to summarize. For anything
| really long that I'm just not interested in reading fully and
| only want the main points, I use an LLM with the URL to
| summarize briefly.
|
| While there's so much value in slowing down as the OP wrote, I
| feel as if journalists want you to lend the same pace to them
| for all the time of ours they waste. It's like they forget how
| much information is available to us and how unimportant it all
| is.
| ByThyGrace wrote:
| > When I read a book of that much importance
|
| Imagine if Tolkien was writing Fellowship last decade, and the
| book landed on your hands today. No decades of cult growing, no
| adaptations or explosive marketing, some word of mouth. Would
| you think it "much important" before reading it? What makes the
| importance?
|
| In my opinion it's the prose. It's always the prose. Always
| gotta be on the lookout for good writers, new and old.
| yawz wrote:
| I love Woody Allen's speed reading joke:
|
| > "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in
| twenty minutes. It involves Russia."
| delis-thumbs-7e wrote:
| I don't know any specific name for it, but it is fairly common
| reading technique used in literary analysis. If you ready any
| kind of poetry more refined (say [1] or [2]) in its internal
| structure, it is an absolute necessity.
|
| It is quite amazing how many people do not know that there is a
| multitude of reading techniques to be used with various kinds of
| texts. You need to use a right tool for the job. Tolkien's
| passages describing the Middle Earths ecological landscape are
| particularly rich calling for careful reading and lingual
| analysis. I believe he uses almost sole old Celtic words in those
| passages, avoiding any newer latin-based words more familiar to a
| modern reader, which cannot be a coincidence.
|
| [1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46452/to-an-
| athlete-d... [2] https://poets.org/poem/having-coke-you
| copirate wrote:
| > When you slow down your eating speed, say to half or a third
| your default speed, you get much more enjoyment out of a smaller
| amount of food.
|
| That's not always the case. With certain types of food, it's much
| more enjoyable to have your mouth full than to eat a small
| amount, for example. It's a trade-off.
|
| It's the same with a story. Taking too long can make it boring,
| for example.
|
| That doesn't mean we always choose the optimal balance, though.
| criddell wrote:
| LoTR isn't for me, so reading it slowly wouldn't be an
| enjoyable experience. There are other books for me where I
| found myself reading and re-reading, moving through the book
| slowly, marveling at text wondering how the author managed to
| pick perfect word after perfect word.
|
| For some books, faster is better. Neuromancer, for example, has
| a lot of sentences and paragraphs that if I go slowly, I can't
| figure out what it is that Gibson is talking about. But if I go
| fast, I pick up the vibe and things start to make sense.
| m12k wrote:
| This almost reads like the beginning of a mathematical proof of
| Zen: As the speed with which you pursue satisfaction
| asymptotically approaches zero, your state of mind asymptotically
| approaches enlightenment.
| paperpunk wrote:
| Tangential but when reading books like Lord of the Rings with
| songs periodically written in the text, I've always enjoyed
| trying to sing the songs out loud and set a melody for them that
| feels appropriate for the universe. It really makes the songs
| come alive.
| gnull wrote:
| https://youtu.be/V4TXg69kfo8?t=977
|
| Reminds me of this speech by Leon Wieseltier.
| rozab wrote:
| In one of his essays, Philip Pullman suggested reading Paradise
| Lost out loud which was a revelation for me. I never considered
| reading anything out loud for myself but it changes the nature of
| the experience entirely.
|
| Tolkien recorded some passages of LoTR on a friend's tape
| recorder while it was still unpublished, I'd highly recommend
| checking them outz particularly the Ride of the Rohirrim.
| sfy wrote:
| I've tried reading fast, I've tried reading slow, The text
| escapes my mind, As soon as I let it go.
| brador wrote:
| I watched game of thrones at 2x speed. I feel I watched it but
| have no concrete memories of events outside the big hit makers.
| udfalkso wrote:
| When I was meditating regularly I found this easier to do. I had
| the presence of mind to notice I was rushing and slow down and
| focus on the details. I need to start meditating again.
| mathattack wrote:
| The best books improve with rereading and slower reading. Tolkien
| fits this. I had an English teacher who reread LOTR every summer.
| I'm not there, but I am on a 5ish year cycle.
|
| Most books are the other way. Zoom through and you can get most
| of the value. This is especially true of non-fiction, where most
| have a message that can be gleaned in 15 minutes. (The exceptions
| are the great ones)
|
| Podcasts are similar. Most give you 80% of the value at 2X speed.
| Even my favorites - I'd rather speed listen to get 80% the value
| rather than get 100% of half the backlog. The best podcasts defy
| this too.
|
| So in the end it's a bit of a skill to both choose the right
| things to slow down on, and then a discipline to force the
| appropriate speed.
| puchatek wrote:
| I can only read at mouth speed. I'm pronouncing each word in my
| head. I wished I could go fast sometimes. Finishing books takes
| me at least twice as long as it does for my wife.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Love the idea that speed reshapes taste. When you slow down, a
| lot of "content" reveals itself as empty, and better stuff
| suddenly becomes accessible instead of intimidating
| docmars wrote:
| I wish the AI tech giants would adopt the same thinking and let
| us breathe for a change.
| teiferer wrote:
| I've always taken issue with youtube clips content creators
| automatically (?) cutting pauses between words or people
| listening to podcasts in 1.5x or 2x speed or even clips already
| being sped up. Folks, your brain can't keep up. It may _feel_
| great to rush through 10 hours of audio book in 5 hours, or
| dopamine-pushing even higher if you don 't have pauses in that
| triggering tiktok clip, but it just makes you more and more
| superficial. Your brain needs time to process and reflect. The
| best speakers out there have a calm pace, not a rushing one.
| That's for a reason, and it's an excellent one.
| Zacharias030 wrote:
| Skimmed through it; mostly reading the paragraphs above each
| picture. The irony of which is not lost on me :)
|
| Really enjoyed the part talking about Tolkien. It reminds me of
| my own LOTR experience: I finished the trilogy in three
| consecutive summers in the hilly countryside of Italy near Rome.
| The first summer I made it through the fellowship of the ring
| with a lot of patience and trying for the slower moving parts.
| The summer after that I started over and read book 1 and 2, and
| in year three I felt I was finally in sync with the pace of the
| book and enjoyed reading through book 1, 2, and 3 in a few weeks.
| AmeerHamzaname wrote:
| what is the real casing
| torginus wrote:
| Is it just me, but seeing the general layout of the site, I feel
| a powerful sense of nostalgia - as if its something straight out
| of the mid 2000s to early 10s era of internet.
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