#Best document generation software

[docxcomm]

Customizing PDF Documents for Your Business Needs: A Simple Guide to Online Tools

Easy access to services or communications is a huge priority for modern-day customers. Most customers decide whether to prefer one brand over the other based on the overall experience. As a business, you may need to think about ways to update or inform them from time to time. How does your brand do that? Too often, businesses focus on the product while customer experience, which is equally important, is kicked to a sideline. Sinch in India has launched a brand-new product – a Customer Communication Management (CCM) solution – that will help businesses like yours to create and send customer communication as digital documents quickly without having to liaise with multiple vendors to help you do so. It lets enterprises not just generate customer communication in a PDF format; businesses can send these to customers via SMS, email, and WhatsApp. Automate PDF document creation Automating PDF Document Creation has never been easier with the Sinch PDF template editor and PDF generation API. Sinch advanced drag & drop editor lets you design PDF templates in any browser and generate pixel-perfect PDF documents from reusable templates and data with no-code platforms. Our PDF template editor supports expressions and formatting for datetime, currency, and custom formatting. Automate PDF document creation is one of the best PDF makers through which you can make any PDF. You can easily overlay or add text, QR codes, and images to existing PDFs. Best Document Generation Software Document generation software allows users to generate, customize, edit, and produce data-driven documents. These platforms can function as PDF creators and best document generation software that pull data from third-party sources into templates. Document generation applications can leverage data from various source systems like CRM, ERP, and storage. Document generation applications should easily maintain brand consistency and offer conditional formatting. Documents created through these products range in functionality and can include reports, forms, proposals, legal documentation, notes, and contracts. Create PDF Document Online No matter what types of files you need to convert, our online file converter is more than just a PDF file converter. It’s the go-to solution for all of your file conversion needs. With Sinch, you can create PDF documents online. With a free trial of our online PDF converter, you can convert files to and from PDF for free or sign up for one of our memberships for limitless access to our file converter’s full suite of tools. You also get unlimited file sizes and the ability to simultaneously upload and convert several files to PDF. Our free file converter works on any OS, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.

[egophiliac]

hey so I know you said art for personal use is okay but i was curious as to if you would be okay with me printing out your art 😭 i need things on my walls in my dorm and ive been obsessed with your unique magic series since you posted them lol. totally ok if not!

oh yeah, that's absolutely fine, thank you! ❤️❤️❤️ and if you're after the UM posters specifically, I put up higher-res versions of them here so they should print pretty nicely! :>

[intelliatech]

Top 10 ChatGPT Prompts For Software Developers

ChatGPT can do a lot more than just code creation and this blog post is going to be all about that. We have curated a list of ChatGPT prompts that will help software developers with their everyday tasks. ChatGPT can respond to questions and can compose codes making it a very helpful tool for software engineers.

While this AI tool can help developers with the entire SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle), it is important to understand how to use the prompts effectively for different needs.

Prompt engineering gives users accurate results. Since ChatGPT accepts prompts, we receive more precise answers. But a lot depends on how these prompts are formulated. 

To Get The Best Out Of ChatGPT, Your Prompts Should Be:

Clear and well-defined. The more detailed your prompts, the better suggestions you will receive from ChatGPT.

Specify the functionality and programming language. Not specifying what you exactly need might not give you the desired results.

Phrase your prompts in a natural language, as if asking someone for help. This will make ChatGPT understand your problem better and give more relevant outputs.

Avoid unnecessary information and ambiguity. Keep it not only to the point but also inclusive of all important details.

Top ChatGPT Prompts For Software Developers

Let’s quickly have a look at some of the best ChatGPT prompts to assist you with various stages of your Software development lifecycle.

1. For Practicing SQL Commands;

2. For Becoming A Programming Language Interpreter;

3. For Creating Regular Expressions Since They Help In Managing, Locating, And Matching Text.

4. For Generating Architectural Diagrams For Your Software Requirements.

Prompt Examples: I want you to act as a Graphviz DOT generator, an expert to create meaningful diagrams. The diagram should have at least n nodes (I specify n in my input by writing [n], 10 being the default value) and to be an accurate and complex representation of the given input. Each node is indexed by a number to reduce the size of the output, should not include any styling, and with layout=neato, overlap=false, node [shape=rectangle] as parameters. The code should be valid, bugless and returned on a single line, without any explanation. Provide a clear and organized diagram, the relationships between the nodes have to make sense for an expert of that input. My first diagram is: “The water cycle [8]”.  

5. For Solving Git Problems And Getting Guidance On Overcoming Them.

Prompt Examples: “Explain how to resolve this Git merge conflict: [conflict details].” 6. For Code generation- ChatGPT can help generate a code based on descriptions given by you. It can write pieces of codes based on the requirements given in the input. Prompt Examples: -Write a program/function to {explain functionality} in {programming language} -Create a code snippet for checking if a file exists in Python. -Create a function that merges two lists into a dictionary in JavaScript.  

7. For Code Review And Debugging: ChatGPT Can Review Your Code Snippet And Also Share Bugs.

Prompt Examples: -Here’s a C# code snippet. The function is supposed to return the maximum value from the given list, but it’s not returning the expected output. Can you identify the problem? [Enter your code here] -Can you help me debug this error message from my C# program: [error message] -Help me debug this Python script that processes a list of objects and suggests possible fixes. [Enter your code here]

8. For Knowing The Coding Best Practices And Principles: It Is Very Important To Be Updated With Industry’s Best Practices In Coding. This Helps To Maintain The Codebase When The Organization Grows.

Prompt Examples: -What are some common mistakes to avoid when writing code? -What are the best practices for security testing? -Show me best practices for writing {concept or function} in {programming language}.  

9. For Code Optimization: ChatGPT Can Help Optimize The Code And Enhance Its Readability And Performance To Make It Look More Efficient.

Prompt Examples: -Optimize the following {programming language} code which {explain the functioning}: {code snippet} -Suggest improvements to optimize this C# function: [code snippet] -What are some strategies for reducing memory usage and optimizing data structures? 

10. For Creating Boilerplate Code: ChatGPT Can Help In Boilerplate Code Generation.

Prompt Examples: -Create a basic Java Spring Boot application boilerplate code. -Create a basic Python class boilerplate code

11. For Bug Fixes: Using ChatGPT Helps Fixing The Bugs Thus Saving A Large Chunk Of Time In Software Development And Also Increasing Productivity.

Prompt Examples: -How do I fix the following {programming language} code which {explain the functioning}? {code snippet} -Can you generate a bug report? -Find bugs in the following JavaScript code: (enter code)  

12. Code Refactoring- ChatGPt Can Refactor The Code And Reduce Errors To Enhance Code Efficiency, Thus Making It Easier To Modify In The Future.

Prompt Examples –What are some techniques for refactoring code to improve code reuse and promote the use of design patterns? -I have duplicate code in my project. How can I refactor it to eliminate redundancy?  

13. For Choosing Deployment Strategies- ChatGPT Can Suggest Deployment Strategies Best Suited For A Particular Project And To Ensure That It Runs Smoothly.

Prompt Examples -What are the best deployment strategies for this software project? {explain the project} -What are the best practices for version control and release management?  

14. For Creating Unit Tests- ChatGPT Can Write Test Cases For You

Prompt Examples: -How does test-driven development help improve code quality? -What are some best practices for implementing test-driven development in a project? These were some prompt examples for you that we sourced on the basis of different requirements a developer can have. So whether you have to generate a code or understand a concept, ChatGPT can really make a developer’s life by doing a lot of tasks. However, it certainly comes with its own set of challenges and cannot always be completely correct. So it is advisable to cross-check the responses. Hope this helps. Visit us- Intelliatech

[mehsithomas]

Benefits of Generative AI in Text-to-Speech With Dialect LLC In USA

Generative AI Text-to-Speech (TTS) services by offering numerous benefits, particularly in enhancing the naturalness and diversity of synthesized speech. Here are some key advantages:

Naturalness: Generative AI models can produce speech that closely mimics human speech patterns, including intonation, rhythm, and emotion, resulting in more natural-sounding voice synthesis.

Customization: With generative AI, TTS services can offer customizable voices, allowing users to select from a wide range of accents, dialects, and even create personalized voices tailored to specific needs. Diversity: Generative AI enables the creation of voices representing various demographics, dialects, and languages, thereby promoting inclusivity and accessibility for diverse user groups.

Adaptability: These systems can learn and adapt over time, improving the quality and consistency of synthesized speech based on user feedback and evolving linguistic patterns.

Efficiency: Generative AI models can generate speech in real-time, enabling faster response times and seamless integration into various applications, such as virtual assistants, navigation systems, and accessibility tools.

Dialect LLC, based in the USA, harnesses generative AI technology to provide cutting-edge TTS solutions. Specializing in dialect synthesis, Dialect LLC offers a rich variety of regional accents and linguistic nuances tailored to specific cultural contexts, ensuring an immersive and authentic user experience.

Article Written by: JA Translations

We are a prominent translation company in India, having a team of over 20,000 native translators and over a decade of experience in managing extensive translation and localization projects. In today's highly globalized world, language translation services are crucial. Effective language communication is essential as businesses and individuals connect across borders and cultures. The ability to proficiently speak multiple languages has become vital in facilitating seamless communication and fostering successful connections between diverse communities.

[healthfitness235]

Did you know this one thing can predict your wealth and transform your body?

Anyone who has dreamt of a better life understands the frustration and disappointment when things don’t go according to plan. Some people see this problem as a failure to follow through with the demands of their routine, but that’s not the case. What if the reason that these people seem to fail has nothing to do with how forcefully they push to achieve? What if the actual solution is as simple as a 20-word script?

That’s what The Genie Script is all about. According to their website, the key to getting enough energy, having the right intelligence, and establishing mental clarity is simple and singular. The late Bob Proctor originally described the one thing holding consumers back and it is inside every person. This hidden gem is the key to wealth and can even help consumers establish themselves as overnight millionaire in some cases. read more.. https://geniescript.org/

[fixyourwritinghabits]

AI, Plagiarism, and CYA

Shout-out for all the students gearing up to go back to school in increasingly frustrated times when dealing with all this AI bullshit. As you've probably noticed, lots of institutions have adapted anti-plagiarism software that incorporates AI detectors that - surprise - aren't that great. Many students are catching flack for getting dinged on work that isn't AI generated, and schools are struggling to catch up to craft policies that uphold academic rigor. It sucks for everyone involved!

As a student, it can really feel like you're in a bind, especially if you didn't do anything wrong. Your instructor isn't like to be as tech-savvy as some, and frankly, you might not be as tech-savvy as you think either. The best thing to do, no matter how your school is handling things, is to Cover Your Ass.

Pay attention to the academic policy. Look, I know you probably skimmed the syllabus. Primus knows I did too, but the policy there is the policy the instructor must stick with. If the policy sets down a strong 'don't touch ChatGPT with a ten-foot pole' standard, stick to it. If you get flagged for something you thought was okay because you didn't read the policy carefully, you don't have ground to stand on if you get called out.

Turn off Autosave and save multiple (named) drafts. If you're using Microsoft Word because your school gives you a free license, the handy Autosave feature may be shooting you in the foot when it comes to proving you did the work. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but I've seen this bite enough people in the ass to recommend students go old-school. Keep those "draft 1234" in a file just in case.

Maintaining timestamped, clearly different drafts of a paper can really help you in the long-run. GoogleDocs also goes a much better job of tracking changes to a document, and may be something to consider, however, with all this AI shit, I'm hesitant to recommend Google. Your best bet, overall, is to keep multiple distinctive drafts that prove how your paragraphs evolved from first to final.

Avoid Grammarly, ProWiritingAid, etc. All that handy 'writing tools' software that claims to help shore up your writing aren't doing you any favors. Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and other software throw up immediate flags in AI-detection software. You may have only used it to clean up the grammar and punctuation, but if the AI-detection software says otherwise, you might be screwed. They're not worth using over a basic spell and grammar check in both Word and GoogleDocs can already do.

Cite all citations and save your sources! This is basic paper-writing, but people using ChatGPT for research often neglect to check to make sure it isn't making shit up, and that made up shit is starting to appear on other parts of the internet. Be sure to click through and confirm what you're using for your paper is true. Get your sources and research material from somewhere other than a generative language model, which are known for making shit up. Yes, Wikipedia is a fine place to start and has rigorously maintained sources.

Work with the support your school has available. My biggest mistake in college was not reaching out when I felt like I was drowning, and I know how easy it is to get in you head and not know where to turn when you need more help. But I've since met a great deal of awesome librarians, tutors, and student aid staff that love nothing more to devote their time to student success. Don't wait at the last moment until they're swamped - you can and will succeed if you reach out early and often.

I, frankly, can't wait for all this AI bullshit to melt down in a catastrophic collapse, but in the meantime, take steps to protect yourself.

[alexanderwales]

One of the software concepts that I found useful to bring over to writing is the concept of technical debt.

Technical debt is the additional work that gets created when you choose a fast option over a good option. It's "debt" because there's a very good chance that at some point you're going to have to repay it: you hardcode in some variables, deciding that you'll figure out the proper way to do it later, and eventually, surprise! It's later. You have to implement the solution you were putting off. And because you've been using the kludge for so long, sometimes that kludge has become load-bearing, and you have to spend quite a bit of time unraveling and refactoring. One of the reasons it's called debt is because you have to pay interest on it.

And the thing is, it's not always wrong to accrue technical debt. Sometimes it helps you get to working on the important thing, and can clarify design details or implementation concerns, and sometimes you can just ship without ever having to do it the "right" way. Sometimes you can wriggle out from under that debt and never suffer any consequences from it, even if there were theoretical consequences when you made the decision to do it the fast way.

The way that this applies to writing is mostly in terms of worldbuilding, character building, and plotting. You can sit down and map a whole novel out without writing a single word, whipping up character bibles and setting details and everything that you might possibly need, all before you write a single word.

... or you can accrue some debt and just gun it, writing as you go, making things up, adding them to some kind of tracking document or just not even doing that.

And as with code, there will come times you have to pay that debt back with interest.

Sometimes you skimp on a character's backstory, and then a few chapters down the road you need to make a decision about it, and suddenly there's a bunch of editorial work as you have to make sure that everything you just decided on matches up with what you've already written. A more extreme example would be writing a mystery novel where you haven't decided on what the answer to the mystery will be until very very late: it would either produce a bad mystery or require tons of rewriting.

As with code, the difficulty is knowing when you're incurring technical debt for a good reason and when you're shooting your future self in the foot.

Here are my rules of thumb for writing, in terms of what's acceptable technical debt:

Plot stuff should not wait. You should have a resolution for your story within the first few chapters of writing that story, and ideally, before you even start.

Everyone (and everything) gets a name the first time it appears. You cannot say "the gardener" a dozen times because you don't want to think of a name for the gardener.

All magic systems and superpowers and whatnot should be rigidly defined before they come onscreen. This doesn't need to be known to the characters, and "soft" magic has less of a requirement, but having rules be thought up midway through a fight scene is essentially the definition of generating technical debt.

Descriptions take little effort to bring into alignment, so can be skipped on first draft, so long as there is a description there. Having descriptions written afterward can help to understand mood and requirements of the scene.

Backstory is really variable, depending on how relevant to the plot it is. If it's going to be driving conflict, it needs to be worked out ahead of time. If it's flavor, it can be winged.

I am, of course, not the best follower of my own advice, and sometimes for very long webfic it's impossible to plan that much in advance. And of course I never go into every work having had every idea I'm going to have, and some of those ideas are good enough to include even if they disrupt a plan and require some refactoring.

[greaseonmymouth]

As you've asked for asks!:

Do you have any quick-and-dirty book/fic binding methods a terrified-of-failure novice could use to bang something out to get over the first collywobbling step of Actually Doing The Thing? (this may be something I've been meaning to ask for ages)

yes! I absolutely do! in my opinion the best quick-and-dirty bookbinding method is a no-glue pamphlet: you don't have to mess with glue or measuring or cutting anything, all you need is your text, some paper, a needle and thread. you can use the same needle to punch holes if you don't have an awl.

this is going to be a little long but that's because I'm going to write out some fairly detailed instructions for an A5 sized pamphlet. If you don't want detailed instructions and think you can glean the necessary info from photos, just skip to the photos! I've also linked tutorials.

for preparing the text to printing, in whatever software you use (word, libreoffice, gdocs, whatever) make sure your document is set to page size A5. make it look readable. then save as/export that document as a straight-paged PDF. now go to the bookbinder JS tool (https://momijizukamori.github.io/bookbinder-js/), and upload the PDF. source manipulation: none printer paper size: A4 display unit (you can ignore, or choose cm if it gives you anxiety that it automatically displays points) printer type: select single-sided or duplex accordingly* rotate paper: ignore flip on long side: check if you are printing duplex and if your duplex printer flips the paper on the long side page layout:  tick folio page scaling: original page positioning: centered ignore the rest flyfleaf: ignore signature format tick: standard signatures. in the length drop down, this depends on the type of pamphlet you are doing. for folio i generally find 4-5 pages per signature a comfortable thickness. if you have 6 whole A4 pages you can still do that as a single signature or you can split it into two signatures 3 pages each. wacky small layouts: ignore this signature info click the generate preview button to see what your PDF looks like imposed! I love this step especially when I'm doing quarto (A6) or octavo (A7) sized books generate output - click this to generate an imposed PDF

for A6 and A7 sized books the instructions are much the same, except for these you make sure the page size is A6 or A7 in your software, and then you choose quarto or octavo instead of folio. for signature length drop down I keep signature length to 1 for octavos typically and 2 for quartos, as this still refers to sheets of paper, and for octavo 1 sheet of A4 paper will turn into 4 smaller sheets in one signature once folded and cut.

*if you don't have a duplex printer you will have to manually turn the paper to print on the other side. I cannot be arsed with this so I bought a printer capable of duplex printing (I didn't have a printer anyway). if you already have a printer check what it can do as you might be surprised and go from there.

now to the pamphlets! you don't need a cover - I have one for the long stitch pamphlet but for the saddle stitch one I didn't bother and just made sure the first page had a title on it. you can always take a different piece of paper and print a cover on or or just use coloured cardstock and create a simple cover, but a cover is not necessary unless you're doing a long stitch pamphlet. all you need to do is to punch holes and start sewing. there are a few different stitch types below, I wouldn't say any of them are more difficult or easier than others, but they do look different so...pick one you like the look of and go from there?

pamphlet stitch (uneven number of holes) I haven't ever done a pamphlet stitch but here's a tutorial for how to do it: https://www.starpointestudio.com/simple-pamphlet-stitch-book-step-by-step/

saddle stitch (uneven number of holes) I realised that what I was thinking of as a pamphlet stitch is actually saddle stitch, as in this A7 pamphlet:

here's a tutorial for how to sew saddle stitch: https://www.bookbindingworkshopsg.com/saddle-stitch-bookbinding-tutorial/ here's a video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWHkY5jOoqM (sealemon has a lot of bookbinding tutorials and I know many people who like her videos, I used her tutorial for coptic binding way back when I first made a book but I can't otherwise vouch for the quality as I haven't used her videos)

french link stitch (even number of holes) in this one I used french link stitch which I typically use for thicker textblocks that i'm not planning to use tapes with as the french link gives it some robustness, I used it here because I had never done it before and wanted to try it out. I am planning to take these stitches out and re-sew this pamphlet with a cover now that I've found a suitable piece of transformer fanart to use as a cover:

french link tutorial. it's quite long but it has a colour coded bit towards the end that shows how the thread is supposed to link which i find very helpful to visualise: https://www.handmadebooksandjournals.com/bindings/french-link-stitch-binding/

here's a video tutoral from DAS bookbinding (he is my go to for techniques and he has the most soothing Australian accent as well, though fair warning not all of his videos are for beginners): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ZPdbaM-Ws

long stitch (even number of holes) for this one I used long stitch and I had a cover. this one is my favourite variation because I can make these pretty and simple covers and the stitch looks nice on the outside as well, so this one scratches the 'i want to make a book' itch for me.

here's a tutorial that also includes a how to on a cover that is different from my cover: https://lccprintmaking.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2020/06/Long-Stitch-Tutorial-A4.pdf DAS also has a video tutorial for long stitch but it's like three videos long, maybe watch it later :'D  here's one I haven't watched but seems decent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnignTL_wDQ

you can use saddle stitch for this kind of pamphlet as well, that's what I did for dozens of ships and hundreds of souls (https://ashmouthbooks.tumblr.com/post/681587080267202560).

I hope this helped!!

[dawnfelagund]

My Open-Source Tolkien Studies Data Sets

One of the best parts of being an independent scholar is that I get to be generous with my research. I am not counting on it for a job, and frankly, between teaching at a small rural school and running the Silmarillion Writers' Guild, I will likely never be able to do all that I want to do with the data that I collect and so love the idea that someone might do something with it.

Because I do love making sets of data. Everything from the mind-numbing copy/paste data entry to learning new spreadsheet formulas is enjoyable to me. I'm an introvert in a very extraverted profession, and after a day of being all on for my students, turning everything into numbers is like a cup of tea under a warm blanket with a Golden Retriever at my feet.

So please use these data sets if they interest you. Play with them. Write about and share what you notice. Expand and build on them. Publish using them. If you use my data or work, credit Dawn Walls-Thumma and link to my website, dawnfelagund.com, if possible. I'd also love if you'd let me know if you share anything using them.

Consolidated Timelines. I made this back in 2013. I was trying to arrange all of Tolkien's timelines side by side. I did some weird things with numbers that I'm not sure I fully understand now, but maybe you can make sense of this or maybe you just want everything Tolkien said about timelines in one handy document. (Make a copy of the Consolidated Timelines.)

Fanfiction Archive Timeline. Made for the 2023 Fan Studies Network North America conference, this timeline-on-a-spreadsheet shows archives in the Tolkien and Harry Potter fandoms, multifandom archives, and social networks and when they came online, were active, became inactive, and went offline, along with data about affiliated communities, software, and rescue efforts. I update this timeline annually with that year's data and will continue to add new archives when I have enough data to do so. (Make a copy of the Fanfiction Archive Timeline spreadsheet.)

References to Sources in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In this document, I record each time a narrator's source is mentioned or alluded to. Ideally, this will one day include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as well! For now, it is just The Silmarillion for the selfish reason that I'm predominantly a Silmarillion researcher. (Make a copy of the References to Sources.)

Silmarillion Characters. A list of all of the characters in The Silmarillion, demographic data about them, the number of times they are mentioned, various aliases, and which "books" of The Silmarillion they appear in. The latter part is a work-in-progress. (Make a copy of Silmarillion Characters.)

Silmarillion Death Scenes (spreadsheet | document). For last year's Tolkien at UVM and Oxonmoot conferences, I collected every death scene in the Quenta Silmarillion and recorded various details about character demographics, cause of death, and grief and mourning rituals. (Make a copy of the spreadsheet. Make a copy of the document.)

The Silmarillion: Who Speaks? This is my newest project, which I hope to complete by the end of the year, documenting which characters get to speak actual words, the number of words they speak, and demographics about the speaking characters. Eventually, I would like to include as well characters who are mentioned as having spoken without being given actual dialogue, but one step at a time. Again, this is a work-in-progress. I have just started working on it. Come back in 2025 and, hopefully, there will be interesting stuff to see.

[prokopetz]

Hi, Mr Prokopetz, I'm a big fan. Apologies if you've answered this before, but I was wondering what software you use to create the pdf and epub layouts of your ttrpgs, and whether you'd recommend it to a hobbyist who wants to try putting together something more professional than a gdoc for their own ttrpg?

My workflow is unfortunately not terribly accessible unless you have a fair amount of technical know-how.

In brief, I write all of my games in Notepad++ as HTML documents, taking care to use only the subset of HTML5 tags which are supported by most popular EPUB readers. I then use Calibre (or, more, precisely, the command-line utility that comes with Calibre, though you can get mostly the same results via the GUI) to bundle the HTML document as an EPUB3 file. I typically distribute both the HTML and EPUB versions (the former in a zipfile with all of the fonts and images and such) because web browsers tend to have much better screen-reader support than EPUB apps do.

The PDF, meanwhile, is generated from the same master HTML document using CSS paged media extensions – the layout is all generated automatically based on rules specified in a big, gnarly CSS file, and is never touched by human hands. There are a number of software packages which can do this sort of CSS-driven HTML-to-PDF conversion, some of them free or open source; I use a commercial product called Prince because, to the best of my knowledge, it's the only such software which has out-of-the-box support for PDF/UA semantic tagging (i.e., the stuff you need to do in order to make your PDFs screen-reader friendly), but you have more options if you're willing to tag your PDFs manually. (I am not.)

As for whether I'd recommend doing it this way? Like I said, unless you're a proper gearhead, not really; it's super efficient once you get it all set up – the only version of the game I actually maintain is the master HTML document, and generating updated versions of all the other formats is a one-click affair – but it's really only feasible for me because I already knew how to all that workflow automation stuff for unrelated reasons. I can't imagine teaching yourself all that from scratch just to write elfgames!

[topazadine]

Let's do another spicy writing take, one that is going to get a lot of people very mad. However, please note that I am saying this out of love and concern. This is not an attack on you personally or on your writing process.

Take a deep breath, prepare to listen with an open mind. Alright. Here goes:

Stop starting a million WIPs.

I am serious. Please. Do not do that. Do not start a million WIPs.

Why? Because then you won't get any of them done. And why is that? Because you'll lose motivation, get distracted, and hop on to the next thing, leaving a trail of heartbreak in your wake.

I have 131 stories on Archive of Our Own and have written over 2 million words of fiction. Two. Million. Words.

Don't believe me? Look.

And then there's more that is not accounted for here: a 110k novel, another 109k novel, and a 20k novelette, along with my current WIP which is currently around 10k. All told, I have written approximately 2,084,000 words.

Are they all perfect? No, of course not, especially the older stuff. But is it done? Yep.

And I did that by doing each project one at a time.

If I get another story idea while I'm in the middle of another story, I write a note in my WIP list, but I don't start it. Only when I'm letting a story "rest" before editing do I start outlining another book, but I still don't start. I wait until I've finished one entire project before I do another one.

Your brain does not actually multitask. Our brains aren't wired to do that. This article from Forbes explains:

You are highly unlikely to be part of that 2.5% even if you think you are. I'm not, and you're probably not either.

What you are really doing is task switching. Take it from the software management program Asana:

That article from Forbes elaborates:

And it is even worse when you are hopping from one WIP to another, essentially changing contexts.

Pleexy, another task automation company, continues by discussing 'context switching':

Every time you stop working on one WIP, you are switching contexts and pulling yourself out of the world you have created, jumping into another. Now your brain is struggling to reorient itself, and it's not going to do its best work.

"But I love writing different WIPs and I get some of them done!"

I am sure you do, but is it your best effort? Would you have been able to write faster, more coherently, better, if you had only worked on one? Probably. And don't you want to do your best?

"But I have ideas and if I don't do them right now I'll forget them!!!"

Then write them down. I have a whole WIP list of things I am intending to write later. Make a notepad document, a spreadsheet, whatever, for your different WIPs.

When you think of something interesting for that project, put down a small note underneath it, but don't start writing! Your brain will let it marinate and when you're done with your current project, you'll have a better idea of what to do with it.

I like to visualize things before bed, so a lot of the time, I will use that visualization for a different project as my way to calm down, but I'm not devoting too much attention to it before I'm ready to work. I've got some scenes and images that I have daydreamed about, but I haven't drawn attention away from my current WIP by actually beginning to write.

This way, I can devote all of my brainpower to my current project while reserving a little bit of attention and aspiration for the next one. I also avoid writer's block because I have my next WIP lined up, waiting for me, and I can transition to it almost immediately.

Generally, I don't go more than a few days without starting a new project (after completing one!!!!!) because I am prepared for it: I can give it my full attention. There's no sitting around and waiting for inspiration.

"But I have so much inspiration for this project and want to start right away!"

Something I am learning as a writer is delayed gratification. I am an impulsive person and I want to jump into things right away, but then I get disappointed with the results. For example, I released 9 Years Yearning before commissioning a really good cover. I regret that and I'm going to learn from that mistake with the next book in The Eirenic Verses.

By waiting, you get a better payoff.

I've got four different projects waiting to be released and one waiting for serious revisions. They are all finished, but they're not polished. It would be very easy for me to spend a few hours formatting them and then just throw them up, but I won't get the best payoff then.

Instead, I'll wait for a break between projects before turning back to them and fixing them up, giving them all my attention. Yes, it means I don't release a billion books a year, but it also means I release my best work.

Writing is not a sprint; it's a marathon. It's okay to give your projects a break.

By letting my stories rest, sometimes for entire months, I can come back to them with fresh eyes and make sure they're perfect. The same is true of your WIPs. Let them sit and marinate for a while.

How to avoid having a billion WIPs:

Make a list of future WIPs. Put it in one document. Add things as you think about them.

Put this list of WIPs away and ignore it.

Allow yourself to get some writer's block if you're struggling with your current project. Writer's block is okay sometimes. Don't use writer's block as permission to start something else.

Put reminders up that tell you not to start things. I like the phrase "bird by bird" which I got from the eponymous book by Anne Lamott (which is really good writing advice).

Read up on task switching and the myth of multitasking to show why having a million WIPs doesn't work.

Interrogate yourself. When you have a bunch of WIPs, do you actually get any of them done? Be realistic and ruthless with yourself.

Look back at how many WIPs you have in storage. Identify your WIP completion rate. It's probably lower than you think.

Read about the writing habits of other writers. You'll find most successful writers do not have a ton of different projects at once. They also go one at a time.

"No I'm going to write a million WIPs anyway! You don't know me!"

Okay, then go for it. You're not obligated to take my advice. I can only tell you that the science - and my personal experience - says that's not a good idea.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter to me if you continue to stop and start a gazillion different projects and get none of them done. That's your problem, not mine.

But I'd rather you be able to finish something you're proud of, because then you're growing as a writer, and I always encourage personal growth.

It honestly makes me sad when people go "teehee I have soooo many WIPs and I just started another one hehehe!" because I know, without a doubt, that almost none of them will see the light of day.

You deserve better than a bunch of unfinished projects. You can achieve more than that. Put down the WIP list, focus on your current story, and go for it.

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[watchmorecinema]

The story of Microsoft's meteoric rise and IBM's fall has been on my mind lately. Not really related to any film, but I do think we're overdue for an updated Pirates of Silicon Valley biopic. I really think that the 80's and 90's had some wild stories in computing.

If you ask the average person what operating system your computer could have they'd say that if it's a PC it has Windows, and if it's a Mac it has macOS. All home computers are Macs or PCs, but how did it get this way?

In the 70's everyone was making home computers. Tandy was a leather supply goods company established in 1919, but they made computers. Montgomery Ward was a retail chain that decided to make their own store brand computers. Commodore, Atari, NEC, Philips, Bally and a million other assorted companies were selling computers. They generally couldn't talk to each other (if you had software for your Tandy it wouldn't work on your Commodore) and there was no clear market winner. The big three though were Tandy (yeah the leather company made some great computers in 78), Commodore and Apple.

IBM was the biggest computer company of all, in fact just the biggest company period. In 1980 they had a market cap of 128 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation). None of these other companies came close, but IBM's success was built off of mainframes. 70% of all computers sold worldwide were IBM computers, but 0% of it was from the home market.

IBM wanted to get into this growing and lucrative business, and came up with a unique plan. A cheap computer made with commodity parts (i.e. not cutting edge) that had open architecture. The plan was that you could buy an IBM Personal Computer (TM) and then upgrade it as you please. They even published documentation to make it easy to build add ons.

The hope was that people would be attracted to the low prices, the options for upgrades would work for power users, and a secondary market of add ons would be created. If some 3rd party company creates the best graphics card of all time, well you'd still need to buy an IBM PC to install it on.

IBM was not in the home software business, so they went to Microsoft. Microsoft produced MS-DOS (based on 86-DOS, which they licensed) but did not enforce exclusivity. That meant that Microsoft could sell MS-DOS for any of their competitors too. This was fine because of how fractured the market was. Remember, there were a lot of competitors, no one system dominated and none of the competitors could share software. Porting MS-DOS to every computer would have taken years, and by that point it would be outdated anyways.

IBM saw two paths forward. If the IBM PC did well they would make a ton of money. Third party devs like Microsoft would also make a lot of money, but not as much as IBM. If it failed, well then no one was making money. Either way the balance of power wouldn't change. IBM would still be at the top.

IBM however did not enjoy massive profits. It turns out that having cheap components and an open architecture where you could replace anything would... let you replace anything. A company like Compaq could just buy their own RAM, motherboards, cases, hard drives, etc. and make their own knockoff. It was easy, it was popular, and it was completely legal! Some people could order parts and build their own computer from scratch. If you've ever wondered why you can build your own computer but not your own tv or toaster, this is why. IBM had accidentally created a de facto standard that they had no control over.

In 1981 IBM's PC was worth 2.5% of the marketshare. By 1995 IBM PC compatibles were 95% of the marketshare, selling over 45 million units and IBM had to share the profits with every competitor. Apple is the only survivor of this time because the Macintosh was such an incredible piece of technology, but that's a different story for a different time.

And Microsoft? Well building an OS is much harder than putting together a few hardware components, so everyone just bought MS-DOS. With no exclusivity agreement this was also legal. That huge marketshare was now the basis for Microsoft's dominance.

IBM created a computer standard and gave the blueprints to every competitor and created a monopoly for Microsoft to boot. And that's why every computer you buy either is made by Apple with Apple software, or made by anyone else with Microsoft software. IBM is back where they started, having left the home computer business in 2005.

It's easily the biggest blunder in computer history. Other blunders have killed companies but none were quite as impactful as this one.

This story, and many others I know of, I first read in "In Search of Stupidity", a book authored by a former programmer and product manager that was able to see a lot of this first hand. I make no money advertising this book, I just had a great time reading it.

[finnlongman]

i hope this doesn't sound patronising if you've already tried that route, but in case you haven't: if this is a text that has been given to you as is and been produced by a general OCR, it might be worth looking into whether ppl have already trained language-specific OCR models for your field of study and using that to transcribe the scanned text again. there's a lot of transcription solutions/software and different fields prefer different ones, and idk the standard for Celtic studies personally, but a site i use often (transkribus) has 2 Irish models whose related projects you might be able to use as a starting point for research at least. best of luck to you either way!

So there are several factors at work with the OCR problems with this text specifically.

The PDF of the text is from Archive. The library copy it was scanned from has various pencil markings and annotations that are interfering with the printed text -- it's not a clean scan. It's also not super high definition, so letters like "h" sometimes get misread as "li", even though they're totally readable to human eyes.

The edition uses frequent italics and brackets to show where abbrevations in the manuscript has been expanded. Individual italicised letters confuse the OCR, as do random square brackets in the middle of words.

It also has a lot of superscript numbers corresponding to manuscirpt variants in the footnotes. Sometimes these are in the middle of a word. This also confuses most OCR systems, even if it can tell that the footnotes are separate from the main text.

The language of the text is late Middle / Early Modern Irish, from two different manuscripts that have their own unique spelling quirks (for example, one of them loves to spell Cú Chulainn's name "Cú Cholain", which is a vibe).

In order to run the text through a more sophisticated OCR system that was equipped to cope with a) annotations, b) weird formatting and punctuation, c) incredibly frequent footnotes (variants), and d) non-standardised spelling (which throws off many language models), I would probably still need to have a reliable, clear, and high-definition scan of the text. Which would require re-digitising it from scratch.

So, the quickest and easiest way to get a version of the text that I personally can use is to sit here and type up 20,000 words into a document. This is 2-4 days' work, depending on how focused I am, and gives me the chance to go through the text in detail and spot things I might miss otherwise, so it's probably a whole lot less effort for more benefit than trying to adapt an entire language model that could read this terrible PDF. Especially as I have no experience of using these programmes so would have a steep learning curve.

Now, somebody absolutely should do that, so we could get proper searchable editions of more things. But honestly, if using transcription tools for medieval/early modern Irish I think there are higher priorities than things already available in printed form, so I doubt it's at the top of anyone's to-do list!

[davekat-sucks]

I have my troll headcanons, and this is gonna be a long one, I’m doing all the Beta trolls. Also note these headcanons assume all characters survive and exist on Earth C.

Aradia Megido is trying to puck back up on the hobbies she abandoned when she became a ghost, and with her luck Earth has a vast archeological expanse of history and paleontology that Alternia destroyed to legitimize the Condesce’s rule, and to erase any mention of organized rebellion against the empire. Of course, history still existed, but is almost exclusively known by highbloods who have the class and age to study writing, own journals to write on, live long enough to document dozens of sweeps of their life history, and have less of a chance to get culled by drones controlling population growth. Reassembling Alternian history on Earth C is like finishing a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces hiding across the empty void of space. Aradia likes to search for fossils, but her interest in the dead and telekinetic connection with ghosts make her a professional paranormal investigator as well, she once snuck into a haunted house being filmed for a ghost hunters TV show, and was caught on camera. Her ripped clothes and ruffled hair from attempting a breaking and entering made her look like an undead troll.

Tavros thinks Pokémon is too simple and amateur for him, when in reality he’s mad he still loses in competitive matches in both card game and online game. He still likes the Pokémon anime! A boy who never grows up going on adventures against an organized crime syndicate trying to steal a powerful ally and nonverbal creature! Not to mention that the Ash character has friends to tag along on their perilous journey! When it comes to fighting with mythical magical monsters and complex bullshit with cards, Tavros has a soft spot for Yu-Gi-Oh, and Seto Kaiba reminds him of a troll that kept on meddling with him… and still does.

Sollux is possibly the best software technician on Earth C. He is an admin for a forum that discusses obscure desktop/master software. He obviously uses Linux and Gnu, and codes .ath viruses as practice for whitehat hackers to disarm. His Earth C hive is entirely themed by bifurcation. His curtains, his furniture, his goddamn toilet are themed by 2 colors. Karkat calls it ugly, Kanaya calls it creative. To cope with his psiionics and his loss of them, Sollux teamed up with Aradia, Karkat, and Feferi to code and design a walkie talkie that can talk to the recently deceased, this was also done so people could stop running specifically to him for predictions of armageddon.

Karkat is trying very hard to accustom himself to human culture, he has watched a lot of human film (mostly American, a few Fench and Soviet films and a bunch of Tokusatsu and Anime slop) to get why humans were like that, and if everyone was like Dave and Rose. He finds human film boring and generic, but continues to watch it anyway, to connect with the human way of life. He also follows John’s Youtube account… to leave hate comments, they don’t even attack John’s appearance or the points John makes about the film, it’s general allusions to how frustrated he gets watching John’s videos.

Nepeta has been banned from New York C’s central park zoo for scaring the bears at their enclosure and intimidating them into smashing the glass. Nepeta was allowed back in 2 years later when she promised she would not harm any animals because “it would be too easy to hunt them.” Nepeta is a professional huntress who is unique in that she doesn’t use firearms, she just catches the animal in her mouth and slices their neck if it’s big game like deer or wild boar. She meets her maximum bag capacity within a day. She is the scourge of human huntsmen and she is known as “the green lioness” to many.

Kanaya was able to pass on the duties of brooding cavern patrol once the first Jadebloods reached maturation after 9 sweeps. On Earth she was introduced to a new series of monsters and beasts after being accustomed to the animated corpses she’d hunt during the Alternian day and rainbow drinkers in her trashy teengrub erotica. Since she was always around Rose, a girlfriend and devout student of zoologically dubious, she became a cryptozoologist and eventually a bigfoot hunter. Her agility, strength, night vision, and rainbow drinker hearing made her perfect for hunting North America C’s most hidden animal. She would mostly stalk the rustling of leaves and moaning from the shadows of the forest to find it’s a human hiker or a bear, until she actually caught Bigfoot in an open Brush 30 miles West of Marquette C, Michigan C. Notably sightings were made days after Kanaya caught the creature, and after a week on news channels, talk shows, radio interviews, getting a nobel prize in biology and ecology, and getting a giant golden trophy called the “first big step” she now is treading westwards for possible other bigfoot sighted from California to Idaho. That is, when she can schedule it, she has a girlfriend she also wants to be there for. Of course, Rose has joined Kanaya on a few bigfoot searches to support her girlfriend.

Terezi IS the law. Professional trollcop and private investigator, she has her own TV show like that of Chris Hansen where she roleplays as different people, ranging from kids that pedophiles prey on to lone wolfs and depressed deadbeats that drug cartels search for to hire as peddlers and soldiers. Terezi’s strongest expertise is hunting down anti-troll hate groups, since she gets to be herself instead of roleplay as a human. She struggles the most catching anti-human troll groups and Neo-Condescites considering she has to fight against her own species, which have an easier time sniffing out if she’s faking her human archetype and some of them are super strong indigobloods.

Vriska haaaaaaaates how boring and fake human roleplaying games are. In FLARP you had real costumes, stat bats, real loot, month long continuous sessions, and dire consequences if you lose. To keep herself not bored she has become a practitioner of the extreme sport of rock climbing, since Vriska hated walking down and up all those stairs just to get to her lusus, and climbing a shear face would be more safe than slipping on those infernal steps! She also wanted one day for her lusus to watch her climb, as spidermom laud down in that pit of webs, too fat and loud to crawl up herself. Spidermom has been dead for sweeps now so Vriska still won. GET F8CKED FUSSYF8NGS!!!!!!!!

Equius was an unfortunate troll who got caught up in strange human subcultures, and that subculture was human hypermasculinity and “alpha” male mentality. He has a Youtube channel, Twitter, and Instagram dedicated to exercising routines, habits, and hobbies that make male trolls, humans, carapacians, and even denizens respected leaders in their community. Equius tried to co-opt My Little Pony as being masculine and sigma despite the protagonists being all colorful horses. Equius believes all of the protagonist ponies (the mane 6 as they’re called in fandom circles) each hold masculine traits that can correlate with the masculine archetypes in alpha men. Think how Twilight Sparkle exemplifies intelligence and planning, AppleJack has strength and stoicism, Rarity appreciates natural beauty and appearence, etc. Also they are horses, and Equius is frustrated that humans took the maned roarbeast (lions) and striped fangbeast (tigers) as the mascot of alpha males. Equius made his own personal gym in his hive because he was banned from all the gyms for excessive sweating and never cleaning up his station. He films fighting tutorials with his combat robots, but they all break in one punch, so Nepeta has to be invited for any successful demonstrations on how to demonstrate Equius’s fighting style and not break in one punch.

Gamzee is in a mental Asylum becaise of the whole murder thing and has only broken off from Lord English’s control for the first time in his life. He expresses himself by rhyming the GREGCLOUROIAN WICKED RHYTHMS for THE FROWNING MASSES to proselytize the NEW COMING OF THE DARKER CARNIVAL. After 5 sweeps in a straitjacket Gamzee was deemed sane and pacified, so he can finally start his real life. He immediately asked Tavros to start dueting some sick bars he wrote in the brig to bring forth the new prophesy of the evanjesters. Tavros agreed without hesitation. “Mike Club” and “Wild T” sell albums as the “UNHINGED PAGLIACCI TROUPE” and have gotten many a negative review as “the worst rappers in all paradox space” but in the end, built up a dedicated fanbase of clownfolk and followers of the true faith.

Eridan doesn’t go out much, if at all. He plays a lot of video games, grand strategy, roleplaying games, a few puzzle games. He feels mixed about First Person Shooters and asks for a good story in an FPS campaign. He sees himself as honorablenand only shoots with a reason, like how he killed lusii to feed G’bolg’lyb and stop the vast glub. He doesn’t want to shoot people because some authority tells him to! Honest! Ask Sollux and he’ll agree Eridan shot in self defense! And Sollux is still alive and happier that he doesn’t hear the boices ofbthe dead doesn’t he?! Maybe Sollux should THANK HIM FOR BEING CONSIDERATE. Sorry what was I talking about? Eridan does not regret a lot of things, but he will still talk about them when you bring them up to insist he does not regret anything, nope, he’s fine. He does hang around with the people, or rather, person he tolerates. Karkat. Everyone else are lowbloods that don’t like him because he’s better than them so they insult him and say he smells bad when that’s the natural smell of the ocean and they don’t understand how important he is, or Feferi who toyed with his emotions and left him for some bipolar mustardblood and avoided him after ALL HE DUD FOR HER AND WAS SO NICE TO HER AND SHE DIDN’T RECIPROCATE THOSE FEELINGS wait what was I talking about? Eridan insists he does not need help. He’s fine. He’s fine fine fine fine fin.

Feferi loves Spongebob Squarepants, it’s a match made in heaven, but she’s not obsessed with it. She still went far enough to paint her recuperacoon blue with the colorful flowers that dotted the oceans of Bikini Bottom. She is an advocate for saving all the coral reefs and has sued many companies with her nonprofit organization and vast personal wealth for spillover of hazardous chemicals into protected waters. Considering how often CrockerCorp gets into these environmentalist lawsuits, Feferi gets under Jane’s nerves. A lot.

Final thoughts. Eridan, Karkat, Nepeta, Vriska, Tavros, and Terezi (sometimes Sollux but he’s busy most of the time) all run a discord for roleplaying and video games. Eridan Karkat and Tavros like to play the Elder Scrolls series, Sollux likes to play the Fallout series, Vriska, Nepeta, and Terezi like both. Sollux tried to get Eridan to play Fallout: New Vegas once, but Eridan got bored after a few hours and thought the morality system was too simple. Between the organized disciplined and stable Caesar’s Legion or the corrupt incompetent bureaucrats of the New California Republic, or the selfish authoritarian Mr. House, or you thrusting the wasteland into chaos as you throw all 3 of the remaining lighthouses of civilization into collapse. Sollux has a let’s play channel but the only uploads on it are Nepeta’s playthrough of Postal 2 she shared on the discord server.

Karkat does a lot of human movie watchparties with his old friends to keep his trollian friends close enough that they don’t kill each other or wander off on this new weird alien world, and to his surprise they like some of the human films even though they are bottom of the barrel compared to peak alternian film. Each of the trolls favorite films are:

Aradia: Carrie (1976)

Tavros: Pokémon the First Movie (2000)

Sollux: The Matrix (1999)

Karkat: Con Air (1996)

Nepeta: The Lion King (1994)

Kanaya Maryam: Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

Terezi: Trolls (2016)

Vriska: Pirates of the Caribbean (2005)

Equius: Spirit (2003) and Fight Club (1999)

Gamzee: Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Eridan: Waterloo (1970)

Feferi: Atlantis the Lost Empire (2001)

Final fact: since films from the beta kids library still had a chronological year, the release year of films gets confusing, so to make up for it, films on Earth C are released on a separate calendar, the year on the Earth C Planetary Film Board is equal to current year (number of years after the original kids touched down on Earth C) plus 2009. Old Alternian films are hard to chronologically measure since they were made billions of years before April 2009.

This is a long one!

These are all amazing!

[paladingineer]

The French Fortran Code From Hell

My first job held the grandiose-sounding title of Technical Consulting Engineer, which was a very fancy way of saying "glorified customer support with some additional maintenance tasks."

I was assigned to a piece of software that was used to help people make their code more efficient. Among my duties were: creating documentation and how-to tutorials for the software; answering support tickets for the software; giving lectures on the software; and providing hands-on assistance in what we called Dungeons.

Dungeons were what happened when you locked a bunch of engineers in a windowless room with a handful of TCEs and lunch catering and let them go at their code with the software for the entire duration of the day, completely dead to the outside world - often repeating this process for several days.

I was in quite a few Dungeons during my three horrible years at that soul-sucking job. I want to be clear: the vast majority of this job was the soul-crushing tedium and agony of answering support tickets. The software in question was... not great at providing helpful error messages. 90% of everything resulted in "There's a problem with your license file" even when the license file was fine. So debugging was always an ordeal.

The best ones, strangely enough, were always the tickets from the military, because everything was classified. Anything that happens on their computer is classified. What does the error message say? That's classified. Can you send me the log output? That's classified. What does your license file say on line three? That's classified. You might wonder how this makes anything better for the poor sap trying to debug it. See, when they can't provide you any info, all you can do is send them the entire support script and tell them to go through the steps themselves. Then they message you back a while later politely telling you that it worked and you can now close the ticket. On the other end of the spectrum you had individual customers who bought the software for their own use, and some of these people were real pieces of work. Anyone who has worked customer-facing jobs knows the kind of person I'm talking about.

Anyway, Dungeons were more of an occasional interruption to the never-ending slog of support tickets, and usually a very welcome interruption.

But a couple times it was... let's say interesting. And both of these stories, oddly enough, involve the French.

The first one was the unfortunate time I was in a Dungeon full of engineers who had flown in from France - Paris specifically if I recall correctly. On the 15th of April, 2019. I received a text from my mother with rather alarming news, and thus I had to be the one to inform the room full of French engineers that Notre Dame Cathedral was actively on fire. Needless to say, very little got done that day.

The second one was just plain painful for me. The software in question supports code in both C++ (commonly used language, good) and Fortran (relic from the 1950s, extremely different from most programming languages). It was fairly rare for us to actually deal with the Fortran side of it, however.

But on this occasion, the French engineers I was in a Dungeon with wanted my help optimizing their Fortran code. Fine, I'm not exactly "fluent" but I can probably get the gist of it, I thought.

I was wrong.

You see, this Fortran code was auto-generated. It was not written by human hands and was not intended to be read by human eyes. It contained statements that were hundreds of lines long. Not functions, statements. To those not initiated in programming, this is akin to a run-on sentence that lasts 38 pages. It had variables with such helpful names as xyz and abc. Likewise, for the uninitiated, this is akin to having a pharmacy where all of the bottles are labeled "Medicine, probably."

It had, at some point, been minimally edited, or at least annotated, by humans, however. Because there were a very small handful of comments!

...Which were in French.

I do not speak French.

The French engineers did not know how to translate French Jargon into English.

Obviously, our company did not ever want us to say "we can't." But in this one case, nobody took issue when I looked these French engineers in the eye and just told them "I'm sorry, but this code is beyond our ability to optimize. It is beyond anyone's ability to optimize. It must be cast into the fire and destroyed; and may god help you."