[HN Gopher] New study suggests handwriting engages the brain mor...
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New study suggests handwriting engages the brain more than typing
Author : prostoalex
Score : 157 points
Date : 2020-10-08 02:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ctvnews.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ctvnews.ca)
| greyfox wrote:
| anedcotally, i've known this to be true about myself for years.
| my typed notes, while MUCH faster, are rarely as well memorized
| (on first pass) as my hand written notes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Shouldn't the title end with ", again."? This handwritten note vs
| digital note taking isn't new, yet every time a report on the
| study of this topic comes to the same conclusion.
|
| We've also seen numerous studies showing that activity during
| learning vs idle sitting in a chair shows better retention of the
| material as well. Lots of the great philosophers would do the
| walk-n-talk instead of lecturing in classroom setting.
| moosey wrote:
| I've seen this in studies before, and it is taught in the class
| "Learning How to Learn". Ever since I took this class, I have
| kept extensive hand written notes that I then turn into Cloze
| Anki cards. This takes forever, though. Handwriting is very slow.
|
| To resolve this, I am currently taking time off from new classes
| to learn Gregg Shorthand. Soon, I'll be able to handwrite faster
| than I can type, and will get the same brain engagement that I
| know arises from handwriting. It is my hope that I can eventually
| write at the rate that I think, which is a major boon to the
| creative process of writing and storytelling.
| burke wrote:
| Why are you so sure that shorthand will provide the same
| engagement as handwriting, and not closer to that of typing? It
| seems plausible to me that the difference could mostly be
| explained by all the superfluous effort of handwriting.
| lame-robot-hoax wrote:
| What are you using to learn Gregg Shorthand?
| paledot wrote:
| The article says "handwriting", but there's nothing to support
| cursive vs. printing as a contributing factor.
|
| Otherwise, I believe it. There's a reason we have a practice
| called "whiteboarding" in tech, and one of the biggest
| adjustments to remote work for me has been using digital
| whiteboards.
| bmhin wrote:
| I believe it to. Anecdotally, my old method for studying while
| in school was just to handwrite out notes as I read. I would
| not even go back to review them as the act of simply writing it
| out by hand was enough to retain it. Typing I feel like is much
| more autopilot. The amount of times I misspell or write the
| incorrect word while typing is way higher than anything done by
| hand.
|
| That said, my handwriting is also atrocious and I would not
| want to ever have to disseminate something in that form over a
| nice, typed document.
| pizza wrote:
| Our brains are (to use a crude analogy) muscle movement
| computers/orchestra conductors. I reckon there are just more
| parts of your brain involved creating specific fine motor
| movements for holding a pen/pencil than just tapping keys
| that never really move relative to your hands.
| penagwin wrote:
| I got an iPad specifically so I could kinda get a hybrid of
| both technology and handwriting. The new ios hand writing
| feature made it even better.
| tasogare wrote:
| I agree on the iOS 14 handwriting update... for Chinese.
| Despite normally being easier to process than, the Latin
| alphabet recognition is poor, in normal condition of writing
| (i.e. I won't adjust my writing to olease the system). Or
| made it's the model language that only knows English? Anyway
| it didn't feel good enough yet for real world usage.
| floren wrote:
| If I need to clearly and calmly plan out a tricky bit of
| software, I will often bring out an old-fashioned dip pen. I'm
| not _slow_ with it, but I have to write a bit more carefully than
| a regular pen or pencil, and of course it 's much slower than
| typing. I tend to end up with a page of thoughtful self-debate
| which I can then condense into a typed summary to use in
| implementation. It is a silly way to work, but it _does_ work.
| findthewords wrote:
| Old studies suggest the same. Here's a random one from 2009:
| https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120905302218
| marsrover wrote:
| How is this a new study? I knew about it 6 years ago and
| specifically didn't take a laptop to class because of it.
| posed wrote:
| Exactly, this is so common sense.
| bigbubba wrote:
| I agree that this is common sense; I've been cognizant of this
| effect ever since I was in college. However, sometimes common
| sense turns out to be wrong, so there is value in actually
| putting common sense to the test.
| claytongulick wrote:
| IIRC, it was Neal Stephenson who said he always writes his novels
| in pencil/pen and paper first.
|
| He said that he is able to type faster than he can think, and
| that it negatively affects quality.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| I noticed the "type faster than I can think" phenomenon when I
| switched to a Kinesis Advantage for the first time and took a
| significant speed hit. My writing immediately improved because
| I had more time to choose words before I got to them. When I'm
| typing normally at 100WPM I am forced to pick words much
| faster.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Interesting, I thought everyone already knew that you remember
| this better if you write them by hand, I guess I was wrong.
|
| Well then let me share you another thing that I think everyone
| already knew, if you start writing, just writing, anything, your
| mind will enter into a state similar to meditation, thus it can
| be quite stress relieving and can help you with better sleep ^^
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| This doesn't suggest anything other than handwriting is a more
| complex task than typing.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Right - writing slows down the rate at which the writer's
| attention moves from one concept to another, which in turn
| means more time is spent per concept. This apparently results
| in better memory retention.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Not so in maths though...
| [deleted]
| Datenstrom wrote:
| True, I always took math notes in LaTeX which I am fluent in
| and still it is much slower. Makes you think about how you
| can distill an idea down into key concepts which leads to
| active learning IMO.
|
| I still keep all my math notes in LaTeX although I'm
| considering trying a reMarkable. They have handwriting to
| text conversion, wonder if there is handwriting to TeX
| conversion.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| I found in my case, well prepared lectures where I write using
| pen and paper allows me to more closely follow the steps and
| arguments. The slower pace of writing allows for more time to
| think about what I write.
|
| Often it would stick so well I didn't need the notes
| afterwards, but I had to go through that process of writing
| them.
|
| An important part here is that I'm basically copying the
| lecturer, so I don't have to think about what to write. Once I
| have to that I learn almost nothing.
|
| For me this is part of the reason why I learn a lot less when
| taking notes on my computer, as suddenly I have distractions
| like having to care about formatting, drawing boxes and arrows
| etc. On paper you just move your hand a little, draw bigger
| letters, or draw a box. It's not something you have to think
| about.
|
| I had mainly math and physics though, might be different for
| other topics.
| criddell wrote:
| > areas of the brain correlated with working memory and
| encoding new information were more active during handwriting
|
| Doesn't that suggest something more than just the complexity of
| data entry?
| Ancapistani wrote:
| It's not relevant to the study in TFA, but I believe
| handwriting notes is more effective because you can't just
| transcribe - you have to instead understand the concept and
| restate it briefly enough to keep up.
| jobigoud wrote:
| More effective than what? Nobody types fast enough to
| transcribe a lecture verbatim, you would need 400 chars per
| minute or so.
| panopticon wrote:
| 400 CPM is only 80 WPM using the normal `WPM = CPM / 5`
| formula. Most of my coworkers are well past 80wpm (we
| played a few of those typing games during the shelter-in-
| place order), and stenographers or court reporters
| generally average above 200wpm with some in the low 300s.
|
| Anecdotally, I never had an issue transcribing college
| lectures when it was just spoken word. My problem was
| when the professor started to write on the board.
| Diagrams and stuff were always obnoxious to transcribe
| quickly, but that was before the days of the iPad and
| such.
| macintux wrote:
| I've known a former journalist who could type ~150 wpm. I
| don't doubt he could keep up with a lecture.
| mattivc wrote:
| I recently got a reMarkable 2 tablet(
| https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 ), and I am absolutely
| loving it.
|
| I have for along time carried around notebooks for note taking
| and journaling, because I felt the process of handwriting improve
| my experience of organizing my thoughts. But it was cumbersome
| and I ended up carrying multiple notebooks for different
| purposes.
|
| Since I got the reMarkable 2 tablet it has replaced all my
| notebooks while retaining all the benefits of handwriting. With
| the added bonus of much easier organizing, backup and being able
| to view the notes on other devices.
| ismail wrote:
| I am deciding if I should cancel my order or not. I like the
| idea of a dedicated almost paper like feel. I hate the idea of
| my notes in some cloud service. You do not need anything to
| read a physical journal other than the book itself. Is there
| anyway to back note up to a physical copy (prints?
| messo wrote:
| Since the remarkable tablets features native SSH access,
| there is an active and growing community that makes really
| great software for these tablets. There is already quite a
| few local-first solutions which makes it possible to avoid
| the cloud: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
| reMarkable#gui-clients
| oumua_don17 wrote:
| How close is the experience of using R2 close to using pen on
| paper? Can you please elaborate more on what aspects make you
| absolutely love it?
|
| I tried Apple pencil with iPad Pro but couldn't find any app
| and neither does the HW replicate the pen on paper exp and it's
| probably not designed/meant for it either.
| waterhouse wrote:
| There was a Youtube reviewer who said it was so much like
| pencil on paper that he forgot it wasn't real paper and
| attempted to smudge the graphite on it with his finger.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9wudCMFWPQ&t=16s
| dotcoma wrote:
| Of course -- you gotta use your body.
|
| The biggest complaint of all I have against Silicon Valley is
| exactly this attempt to make us 'bodyless'. The truth is, if
| you're everywhere, you're nowhere. And if you're not grounded in
| your physicality, you're a "candle in the wind".
| walterbell wrote:
| Social media skipped telepathy kindergarden and went straight
| to telepathy high school.
| papandada wrote:
| In my religious tradition, demons, or their effects, are
| essentially disembodied thoughts ("logismoi"). Which supports
| my experience that social media can be hell on earth.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Doesn't this mean handwriting requires more "cpu" (or resources,
| whatever) than typing? So in other words, it's worse?
| qayxc wrote:
| Quite the contrary is the case. Whenever the brain gets
| stimulated, it forms more or "better" connections.
|
| It's not helpful to compare the brain to a computer in this
| sense, because both simply work in vastly different ways.
|
| The more you use your brain, the better it gets at the task and
| in general (at least to a certain degree). This is not the case
| with CPUs, which only get hotter and often slower (i.e. running
| at lower clock speeds) when utilised more.
| cossatot wrote:
| The primary advantage that I notice of writing complex thoughts
| by hand, for example a first draft of something important, is
| that insertion of more than a few words is difficult on paper.
| Therefore I tend to work just a bit more deliberately and focus a
| bit more on the narrative structure. The results tend to have a
| more coherent narrative flow, be easier to read, and be more
| organized than a draft written on a computer where I can jump
| back and forth between partially-completed paragraphs or
| sections.
|
| Similarly, decreasing the accessibility of information, code,
| etc. helps me develop the narrative when making the first draft.
|
| I get a pretty big productivity bump from bringing a notebook to
| a desk or table away from a computer (with its attendant
| distractions) and spend an hour or two, producing a page or two,
| that require much less editing later. I can leave little spaces
| for numbers or other specifics that I don't have on hand, and
| make marginal notes for other things to research or fill in
| later, while focusing on the structure and organizing my thoughts
| and arguments. Afterwards I can make figures, check calculations
| and statistics, etc.
|
| I also frequently draw out powerpoint presentations on graph
| paper, maybe 8 slides per paper page, and just write the basic
| points and sketch in the figures I want to add. Then I go through
| and actually make the slides at the computer.
| Hoasi wrote:
| Just one data point, in my experience, when it comes to
| creativity at least, pen and paper beat screen and typing.
|
| It could be because it is engaging the senses and the hands/brain
| more, or the physicality of the paper itself.
|
| And another counterintuitive fact: when it comes to ideas,
| drafting in pen and paper is also way faster.
|
| The second draft is a different story.
| zachruss92 wrote:
| In my case this is definitely true. It is much better for me to
| remember handwritten notes than typed ones. In college, one of my
| study methods was to transcribe my typed notes into handwritten
| ones. I took typed notes in the first place for the simple reason
| that I type _much_ faster than I write.
|
| Professionally, I am still the same way. When flipping back from
| pen-and-paper to something like Evernote I definitely remember
| written ones better.
|
| Long-term I'm looking for a solution where I can take notes
| handwritten and OCR scan it into a digital platform to have the
| best of both worlds (my memory plus full text search, sorting,
| and tagging)
| messo wrote:
| You should take a look at the ReMarkable tablet :)
| miki123211 wrote:
| I wonder how this relates to Braille. Is typing braille also that
| bad? What about stylus and slate (making the dots with a stylus)?
|
| I wonder if there are any alternatives that provide the same
| benefits as handwriting and are accessible to the blind.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| Someone should tell Elon Musk. [1]
|
| "Handwriting can be quite messy and they take a lot of time. So,
| instead of spending the majority of the time writing, the spend
| it typing instead. The students are more in touch with computers
| and are much slower when they handwrite."
|
| [1] https://hackernoon.com/how-elon-musk-redesigned-school-
| for-h...
| j4nt4b wrote:
| The Beast of a Billion Battery Packs croaks again...
| barrister wrote:
| Brain activity, as measured here, does not imply good writing.
| I'm quite certain that if you were to type with one hand while
| juggling a few golf balls with the other your "brain engagement"
| would be much higher than simple handwriting.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| barely surprising, considering that more muscles are involved for
| a longer time for writing each letter.
| thoughtexprmnt wrote:
| Does higher measured brain activity for one task relative to
| another performed by the same individual conclusively mean that
| task is "better", or maybe just that individual is more
| efficient/practiced/comfortable with the other task?
| hawski wrote:
| I wonder if subjects would be touch typists would it change
| anything.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'll hypothesize this is a _bad_ thing, not a good thing.
|
| When I type, it's effortless and I can type almost as fast as I
| can think -- so I'm using my brain _efficiently_.
|
| When I write by hand, I hate it. I have to pay attention to how
| I'm holding the pen, if it's legible, if I have room for the next
| word on the line, if I'm going to smudge something, if I can keep
| up with what's being said or just cross this sentence out and
| write the next one before I forget that one too.
|
| So sure, my brain is _way_ more engaged when I 'm writing by
| hand. But it's engaged in a bunch of BS related to writing, not
| the subject at hand. If anything, it's making it harder for me to
| pay attention, which (at least for me) is definitely detrimental.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| I think the fact that handwriting is more challenging than
| typing is _why_ it's better. Your brain isn't just engaged with
| the BS related to handwriting; it has to compress information
| on the fly in order to overcome this BS and still keep up with
| the speaker, which embeds an understanding of the content in
| your brain while you write. When you type, you can transcribe
| all of the info, but none of it resides in your brain
| afterwards.
| cma wrote:
| I don't think you can do literal transciption typing without
| learning something like stenotype, so you'll still have to
| filter and summarize things.
| ezoe wrote:
| Yes, if increasing the brain activities is the goal, our hand
| writing tool should be brush. Or even better, we can increase
| the brain workload by introducing the artificial burden like
| pen refuse to emit ink if its sensor doesn't recognize accurate
| stroke movements or as ridiculous as forcing pen holder to
| performing one hand juggling with the other hand.
| gordaco wrote:
| I guess that it varies from person to person. To me, writing
| definitely makes me remember better and more clearly whatever I
| write. There is something deliberate, something about the
| additional time that it takes to write as opposed to type, that
| somehow cements the material much better. Even the associations
| that I'm running in my mind at the time seem to be easier to
| remember, weeks later.
|
| When I'm studying anything, I've found time after time that
| writing a summary of the lesson is one of the best ways to
| remember everything afterwards. Usually I don't even read it
| afterwards, since the benefit comes from the writing process.
| YMMV.
| eikenberry wrote:
| I don't think this conflicts with the OP premise. Making
| something take longer/be harder is a common trick to help you
| learn something. Like reading out loud helps you remember
| what you read more than just reading silently in your head.
| That doesn't mean that in cases where you are not trying to
| learn that typing would be better as using less mental energy
| means you have more to spare for other uses.
| virmundi wrote:
| Counter hypothesis: handwriting is like free weights in that
| different areas of your brain are engaged at once. As a result
| there are more pathways created or augmented than when typing.
|
| There's similar benefit and issues too. Typing is faster
| therefore better at capturing current facts. But worse for
| overall muscle development.
| sosuke wrote:
| With time you start to develop your own short hand, skipping
| words, focusing on questions to ask yourself when reviewing
| notes. You can often write many words without looking at the
| paper. Embrace the messy and ugly writing. Legibility only
| matters in that you can still read it.
|
| I still want to learn cursive but my handwriting style uses
| plenty of flourishes that mimic cursive. Or writing words that
| are nearly illegible but easy to know in context.
| falcor84 wrote:
| But then you go back to engaging the brain less, so why not
| type?
| content_sesh wrote:
| This is probably more of an argument against taking broadly-
| stated _descriptive_ statements from studies and uncritically
| turning them into _prescriptive_ statements.
|
| You and I both find that our brains are more engaged when
| writing by hand. For you that engagement is a distraction from
| the subject at hand; for me that engagement actually helps me
| focus on the subject at hand. Its interesting that our personal
| experiences line up with the study's findings, but neither of
| us should probably change our habits over it.
| ourlordcaffeine wrote:
| It's been shown that people taking notes by hand during a
| lecture retain more than people who take notes by typing.
| j4nt4b wrote:
| > Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred
| immaturity. Immaturity is man's inability to make use of his
| understanding without direction from another. This immaturity is
| self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in
| lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from
| another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!" --
| that is the motto of enlightenment.
|
| - Immanuel Kant "An Answer to the Question: What is
| Enlightenment?" (Was ist Aufklarung?) (30 September, 1784) [0]
|
| Anytime we read a paper book or write with a pen, we break free
| of the tyranny of the device. The mind is one step further
| removed from the connected mob and therefore one step closer to
| thinking on its own terms.
|
| [0]
| http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/KantO...
| mariodiana wrote:
| I remember turning in a rather embarrassing paper in college
| because I wrote it from beginning to end on my computer, instead
| of writing the first draft longhand, as I had always done
| previously. (Okay, full disclosure: I wrote it through the night
| before the day it was due. But that wasn't anything I hadn't done
| before.)
|
| I'm older than the "digital natives." I was born in 1967 and went
| back to college as an adult. This story I'm telling happened in
| the late '90s. But, in retrospect, I really felt my typing speed
| was faster than my thinking speed. Pencil-to-paper is a much
| slower process and seemed better suited to wrestling with
| complicated thoughts.
|
| I would say I've since adapted and can write first drafts at the
| keyboard. (I'd say I adapted before I got out of college.) But
| longhand still seems more intimately connected to my brain.
| easytiger wrote:
| Interesting aside is that neither engage the brain as much as
| oral storytelling.
|
| Imagine having to remember and tell your history repeatedly
| encompassing generations including complexities of land
| boundaries down to the nearest tree or bush
| abeppu wrote:
| I've heard as an explanation that handwriting forces you to write
| less, and especially in a note-taking context, compress, reframe
| or paraphrase in a way that yields greater understanding.
|
| I wonder, if you could get some of the same benefits by typing
| under some artificial constraints?
|
| - type with software that limits the rate at which you can
| produce characters
|
| - taper des notes dans une autre langue
|
| - use a keyboard but avoid domain specific keywords
|
| - type notes in haiku \\\ allowing some divergence \\\ from
| classical forms
| waterhouse wrote:
| Make a point of spending x amount of time taking what you've
| written and shortening it. Or have a TLDR field with a
| character limit.
| seg_lol wrote:
| I prefer to switch between modes depending on the nature of the
| task.
|
| When I am being creative or can't get overly distracted, I find
| writing it down is best.
|
| When I type, I tend to want to edit too much and it breaks the
| flow. Even now, I have fixed words and reworded things. Editing
| vs creation.
|
| The answer might be in an editor that is set to type only, like
| a typewriter with no backspace or correction paper. Notes
| should only go forward for capture.
| tetha wrote:
| This mirror why I've come over a lot of writing anxiety by
| using a notebook and writing by hand. It may be a bit weird,
| but eh.
|
| Pen and paper forces you to be a bit more deliberate for each
| word, because each word requires more care to be readable.
| But at the same time, each word written is done and set for
| now. And honestly, if I let it sit for an hour or two, it's
| usually a good enough word. And its easier to have a pen and
| a notebook on you and write something down whereever you are.
|
| Editing a written peace for quality is a very different
| thing. A text editor is much superior there.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I see hints of it starting: The Waterfall Model's
| redemption arc.
| dghughes wrote:
| This is similar:
| https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-...
|
| I know writing (cursive) notes about something results in me
| learning faster. But typewritten I can save more information in a
| neater format. Note I see younger people block printing (not
| cursive) which seems incredibly slow and awkward compared to
| cursive writing.
| mathieuh wrote:
| Just to add to the anecdotes:
|
| I bought an iPad Pro (the one before the LIDAR one) with the
| intention of using it to take notes, and I completely failed.
| Combination of feeling self-conscious bringing it into meetings
| and using it at work, and just not being in the habit of taking
| notes.
|
| In the past couple of weeks I've made a point of writing out the
| ideas and reasoning behind what I'm doing before writing any
| code. What I'm finding is I spend a relatively long amount of
| time at this, but even without writing code, I'm finding issues
| with my solutions on paper. Previously I would have just dived
| straight in and then gone "ah, shit" when I got to a blocking
| point.
|
| It's also leaving me with a catalogue of searchable notes about
| parts of our system, and since I've written these notes myself
| they usually include gotchas that I've encountered before. I use
| GoodNotes 5 for this, it can search through handwritten text with
| surprising accuracy.
|
| I'm going to continue doing this, I think it will take longer to
| see if there is any effect on my productivity, but it /feels/
| like it's faster to find a bug on paper rather than getting
| halfway through an implementation, plus I'm building up all this
| reference material.
| heimatau wrote:
| > I completely failed
|
| I'd encourage you to rethink this idea. GoodNotes and OneNote
| and Notability are fairly good at making the experience more
| robust than pen/paper. Especially the search function. It's so
| refreshing to not shift 100 pages to find one or two sentences.
| erickhill wrote:
| They don't even teach penmanship at schools in my area anymore.
| Everything moved to keyboards at a very early age.
| criddell wrote:
| Maybe handwriting engages the brain more because that's how
| most people worked while learning new things as a child? Is
| there a chance the next generation will have the opposite
| correlations?
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I doubt it, but it seems like a reasonable hypothesis to
| investigate.
| cylinder714 wrote:
| Given these studies, I suspect that writing code out on paper
| before typing it in might be an effective way to learn
| programming. What do you all think?
| aquadrop wrote:
| I did this and didn't notice any benefits. And it was very
| slow.
| messo wrote:
| Maybe, if your writing pseudo-code to grasp the logic?
| raegis wrote:
| I haven't had much luck convincing anyone under the age of 30
| to consistently do this.
| amelius wrote:
| How much more?
| jbullock35 wrote:
| Note that N = 24 for this study.
|
| From the article's abstract [1], on method and sample size:
| "High-density electroencephalogram (HD EEG) was used in 12 young
| adults and 12, 12-year-old children to study brain electrical
| activity as they were writing in cursive by hand, typewriting, or
| drawing visually presented words that were varying in
| difficulty."
|
| [1]
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.0181...
| stosto88 wrote:
| This is like the 5th study that confirms this. It's pretty
| conclusive by now.
| ehvatum wrote:
| The absolute state of Twitter says everything about the
| cogitation required to type: none at all. Yet, the spray-painted
| vandalism seen in public spaces is only marginally more informed.
|
| Cuneiform is far more engaging of the faculties and demanding of
| careful composition. Struck by a strange mood, the aspiring
| author must gather clay from the river at low ebb, gather ash
| wood or reed and craft styluses, and must also build an oven, all
| the while lovingly musing upon the intended opus. Any mistake is
| the ruin of the opus. The tablet must be smashed and new clay
| gathered. In comparison, handwriting is but the careless
| ejaculation of worthless ink; fit only for brief amusement and
| animalistic territorial piss-marking.
|
| You'll note the erudition of this post. Indeed, I pound my words
| into my laptop with a hammer and then cook the bastard thing in
| an oven in order to submit.
| scarmig wrote:
| The cuneiform we see is mostly accounting and short snippets to
| glorify the ruler of the day. So, basically, W2 forms and Trump
| tweets.
| dghughes wrote:
| Most cuneiform is an inventory of stuff like amount of wheat
| and who owes who how much.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Most _surviving_ cuneiform is that kind of thing. Various
| incidental items, though, like the complaint letters sent
| to Ea-Nasir [1], suggest that casual discourse was far from
| unknown and may just have usually been done with un-fired
| clay that wouldn 't have lasted for long periods.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-
| nasir
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Fappocalypse Wow!
| tpirx wrote:
| Dude writes like GPT-3
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| That would be backwards. GPT-3 was trained on content and
| comments from the internet so it quite literally writes like
| him. Considering the length of his comment it is probably
| fairly biased towards his style of writing.
|
| /s (slightly)
| ponker wrote:
| I loled.
| egypturnash wrote:
| You can smooth over clay if you make a mistake, you know. You
| can also gather a lot of clay beforehand, keep your styli
| around, and re-use your oven.
| davisr wrote:
| You've failed to interpret the comment, and you are making
| the poster's point for them.
|
| Tail wags the dog.
| mtgx wrote:
| Maybe it was just a GPT3 comment.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I understand "The tail wags the dog."
|
| I also understand "Tail wags dog."
|
| But "Tail wags the dog" -- why the articular/anarthrous
| difference? What does it mean?!?!
| bigdict wrote:
| I think you've failed to interpret the parent who is just
| adding to the joke by pretending to take it seriously.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| You speak of cuneiform as it is the highest form of expression.
| That is foolish, for how does it compare to the high art of
| painting on a cave wall? Rhetorical question, poorly of course.
| Cuneiform completely bypasses hunting for most crimson okra ,
| blackest ash, and sparkling chalk. And that is before we get to
| the availability of the writing surfaces. Tablets are cheap but
| caves are rare! We are talking about pondering for many moons
| of what messages to send to the far futures versus mindless
| hammering of most inane things. It is plainly obvious that the
| gulf between the two is like that of Arecibo message compared
| to a conversation between two twitter bots.
|
| Given the most pervasive argument that is as a matter of fact
| is a fact. I am sure you will agree that cave paintings are the
| most superior form of communication bar none.
| tasogare wrote:
| I doubt the scribes of Sumeria bother doing the tablet
| themselves. They were among the top of society, they probably
| had people making the tablet for them (at least the clay
| preparation, apprentice modeling the tablets from it). You
| don't create a piece of paper from scratch either everytime you
| want to write.
| [deleted]
| goda90 wrote:
| Digital clay. A revolution in computer interfaces.
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