After this article last week started to read his work (some available here https://www.peterputnam.org/) What a life, what a character.
nissomon · 23m ago
A captivating read, bringing life to a very interesting character. Thank you for posting this.
I do wonder about Putnam's research though. Has it been looked into by experts in the field more recently? The article doesn't really give an answer to this.
refactor_master · 2m ago
I agree, it was a very interesting read, though not very information dense. The article vaguely gestures at something that approaches what we now know as “reinforcement learning”, but it seems like Putnams theories were developed entirely in parallel, and those two worlds never intersecting?
nopelynopington · 44m ago
> The neighborhood was quiet. There was a chill in the air. The scent of Spanish moss hung from the cypress trees. Plumes of white smoke rose from the burning cane fields and stretched across the skies of Terrebonne Parish. The man swung a long leg over a bicycle frame and pedaled off down the street.
I stopped halfway through this paragraph and just googled Peter Putnam.
If I want an article to take hours to get to the point I'll go read a recipe blog.
patcon · 19m ago
Good god, the perpetual disdain of default HN for narrative exposition is so deep-rooted.
Y'all know humans are kinda "made of" stories, right? Stories are the unit layer that we add on top of biological structure.
Imho it is essentially self-loathing of the human condition to valorise raw data and detest linear narrative as much as this crowd seems to do
EDIT: Narrative is the wings, without which data cannot travel through enough of the bell curve of minds. Being anti-story is being anti-democratic is being authoritarian. </ hot-take>
dzink · 1m ago
The only truly scarce thing for living creatures is time. The HN crowd expects respect of that so a disclaimer would help filter people with the wrong expectations.
plemer · 11m ago
You loathing others’ preferences /= them self-loathing. Presumptuous and insulting.
cwmoore · 12m ago
I hate this (extremely popular) take.
Narrative is suasion, not substance.
The storytellers know of no other way to tell the audience what is important, so the medium is the message.
verisimi · 21m ago
Thanks.
> If I want an article to take hours to get to the point I'll go read a recipe blog.
I don't appreciate all the extra text in recipe blogs either.
fumeux_fume · 21m ago
If your fishing net is constructed just right--so as to pick out the many interesting gems in this article, you will be glad to know Gefter has also published a book that revolves around John Wheeler.
I do wonder about Putnam's research though. Has it been looked into by experts in the field more recently? The article doesn't really give an answer to this.
I stopped halfway through this paragraph and just googled Peter Putnam.
If I want an article to take hours to get to the point I'll go read a recipe blog.
Y'all know humans are kinda "made of" stories, right? Stories are the unit layer that we add on top of biological structure.
Imho it is essentially self-loathing of the human condition to valorise raw data and detest linear narrative as much as this crowd seems to do
EDIT: Narrative is the wings, without which data cannot travel through enough of the bell curve of minds. Being anti-story is being anti-democratic is being authoritarian. </ hot-take>
Narrative is suasion, not substance.
The storytellers know of no other way to tell the audience what is important, so the medium is the message.
> If I want an article to take hours to get to the point I'll go read a recipe blog.
I don't appreciate all the extra text in recipe blogs either.
Not even close.