[conspire] Discussion: Using LLMs the Right Way: 10/1/2025 7pm Eastern Daylight time

[Steve Litt]

Ivan Sergio Borgonovo said on Sun, 5 Oct 2025 11:54:40 +0200

>On 10/5/25 3:59 AM, Deirdre Saoirse Moen wrote:
>> 
>>   
>>> On Oct 4, 2025, at 12:32, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't understand the point of the preceding paragraph.  
>> 
>> Perhaps you could get one of them fancy LLMs to explain it to you.  
>
>DONE
>
>This situation in Oregon is highly relevant to Large Language Models 

[snip the exact and concise answer to my question]

Ivan, thanks for answering my question, after others answered with
snark.

A guy top posted, without trimming quoted material, and as far as
I can see from Claws-Mail, without even marking quoted material as
being written by others, a paragraph telling a few facts about some
legislation: But in the context of the conversation, what point was he
making? Was it just a point of information? Was it part of a debate?
Was it political? And what was up with those asterisks? After further
examination I'm guessing that the asterisks were bullets in a list, but
we all know that when you don't put blank lines between bulleted
points, many email clients will render them all in one line. Which is
why I always put blank lines in between bulleted lists in email.

Now I could have spent ten minutes researching and trying to figure out
the point he was trying to make, *relative to the current conversation*
(note the intentional inline asterisks denoting emphasis, which is the
only time I use inline asterisks other than source code). But I get
over 100 non-spam emails a day, so to save time, instead I spent 15
seconds saying: "I don't understand the point of the preceding
paragraph."

Instead of saying "Oregon had lots of cheap hydro-generated electronics
and then the LLM carpetbaggers moved in and bid up the cost of
electricity", several chose to snark me off. Ivan, thanks for being the
one to answer my question.

It's true, I don't (anymore) live on the West Coast, so I don't
understand your situation. But the days of a 1300 square mile LUG are
gone: Every LUG has mailing list members from other states, regions and
countries, so "if you lived here you'd understand" is unhelpful. If
(primarily Central Florida) GoLUG were to have a conversation on
building materials and somebody said they'd never live in a wood house
and would only live in a cinderblock house, a lifetime west-coaster
would ask "why the hell would you want a cinderblock house". And
instead of saying "if you lived here you'd understand", I'd say "we've
had one five banger earthquake in 20 years, and it was 150 miles away,
so cinderblock won't fall down. But what Central Florida does have is a
nasty termite problem, and termites just don't eat cinderblock". That's
a helpful answer no harder to write than the deliberately unhelpful "if
you lived here you'd understand".

Now that I understand the point, I'll respond to the actual topic in
another post.

SteveT

Steve Litt 

http://444domains.com