Perhaps my last post – we'll see (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps my last post – we'll see (2016)

itila.blogspot.com

45 pointsipnon19 comments

Purely in the domain of writers and endings, Patrick O'Brien has one of his characters say they think unfinished novels don't need a conclusion any more than an unfinished work of music does: you can imagine how the story goes on for yourself.

Vikram Seth does the same thing with the ending of "a suitable boy" as does Anne Proulx in "the shipping news"

Writing of one's own mortality in these situations obviously invites the final word, but it actually doesn't have to be cast as such.

For this author the situation is terrible, but the writing doesn't have to echo that finality, there's a choice to be made.

Houellebecq's Annihilation is also a good example of this. It starts out a political technothriller, certain threads are worked through towards a resolution, but then the protagonist is diagnosed with terminal cancer and the book's tone changes entirely. The resolution of those technothriller elements is alluded to, but you actively have to fill in the blanks for yourself. I thought that it was very cleverly handled.

Houellebecq is an interesting author. You love him or hate him, but his writings raise questions (some controversial).

He is also a (one-time) porn actor :)

does one-time mean he did it once, or it was his profession once upon a time, if he did it once having done the equivalent of porn summer stock hardly seems worth mentioning.

Well, an arguably famous writer (with a mix of philosophy and politics), well-known in France for his positions who suddenly foes porn in a Dutch movie is not exactly usual.

Whether it is worth mentioning is a matter of preference, it certainly adds colors to the character.

It's much odder than what you are thinking.

* https://lithub.com/how-did-reactionary-french-novelist-miche...

OK it sounds like the kind of thing I was thinking would happen, if you know these kinds of people. I mean, the wife suggested that he get naked on camera to "counteract his gloom" and then the creative differences over the art of the porn.

I mean sounds pretty boring stuff really.

Although I didn't know he was an incel celeb.

>unfinished novels don't need a conclusion any more than an unfinished work of music does: you can imagine how the story goes on for yourself...

>...there's a choice to be made

and if the auteur does not finish it, you won't know that choice

unfinished works exist, yes, there's no denying it, but that's not the same as "unfinished works are just as good as finished". let me unfinish by saying this: I have a very short proof of Fermat's last theorem I'd like to share with you! I've encoded it in the form of a novel, but brief though it be, it won't entirely fit in this textbox... I'll get started, but I'm sure you can imagine it for yourself!

T'was a dark and stormy night when young Fermat put pen to paper...

Under this theory we can then say that George Martin isn't obligated to finish Game of Thrones

https://medium.com/luminasticity/obligations-of-the-author-0...

To me, this author's blog (and others like it) do echo the finality of the end of our existence by remaining in their questioning, unfinished state. That's really just how it goes with our mortality and I think there's something poetic to be said about that, but I have trouble articulating it. We leave life with many questions left unanswered and things left unfinished, no matter how hard we try, it seems.

To the individual, here is, in effect, never enough time. There never will be.

One starts off life with little conscious awareness of life’s big questions. If we’re lucky, we might gain some clarity about the most important questions and share what we learn with others.

From evolution’s point of view, individuals are only a bundle for the survival of genes. It is no surprise that we want more, hence society.

For society, one could argue that its core principles (liberty, freedom, security, flourishing, pursuit of happiness, shared narratives, etc.) are only provided to each individual in a time-bounded way. Individuals may be heartened when they have confidence these principles will carry on to the next generation.

> Individuals may be heartened when they have confidence these principles will carry on to the next generation.

I like this and care deeply about what happens to our world after I am gone, but I worry (excessively, actually) that most others do not. Greed, immediate gratification, etc, these things cloud our judgement so greatly that even I have trouble remembering that the future exists with or without me in it.

It's an interesting problem to think about, but I have no idea what branch of philosophy it falls under, so pardon my sophistry. I do wonder, though; how do we get people to care about this?

There are many ways. One would be to find your people and talk about your goals and find people who can help you and you can help. Another is find a community you want to serve. Instilling such values is easier when people are young and not too jaded.

It nigh-on was. There were three appendices, one of which made it into The Times and The Telegraph but got misrepresented by them; and then a posthumous post by the spouse that is still accruing undeleted comment spam (I've only found 2 real comments out of 236.) in September 2025.

* https://itila.blogspot.com/2016/04/davids-last-interview.htm...

* https://itila.blogspot.com/2016/04/appendix-one-horlicks.htm...

* https://thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/dying-scientists-...

* https://telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/15/cambridge-profess...

RIP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay

David was the first person to employ me as a software developer (working on Dasher, a research project he'd received a grant to turn into an accessibility tool). At the time it felt like a ludicrous amount of money, and I got to travel to a bunch of conferences at someone else's expense. It didn't quite set me up for where I am now, but it was a key part of it.

David was, well. Clearly a genius. Before I worked with him I'd been in another part of the Cavendish, doing sysadmin work for theoretical physicists including a Nobel laureate. The year I worked with David was different - more concentrated learning than I'd ever previously had.

And David was opinionated. Our review meetings would involve him asking for three different new config options based on ideas he'd had, and I'd argue him down to these making sense as a combination but not individually, but also this then being duplicative of some existing options, so if we implemented this correctly I could actually remove a preference instead of adding three more. I probably learned more from that than the coding itself.

And David could absolutely be a dick. He was very invested in his students but he was hard on them, and it was sometimes quite gendered. Probably not worse than the average Cambridge PI of the era (and definitely better than some others I knew), but that's always something that's tainted my experience.

Shortly before his death there was what was effectively a pre-memorial - a number of his past students presented their work, there was a dinner, people had an opportunity to say goodbye. I was lucky enough that the timing worked out for an existing trip to Europe, and I had the opportunity to say goodbye.

David choosing to tie up loose ends before his untimely departure was absolutely his style, and every time his name comes up I remember the fucking dreadful Sun IPX with its 256 colour display I had to use in a terrible office with the worst fluorescents I've ever seen for the first couple of months after I started. Nostalgia is weird, and I wish he was still with us.

I almost did a PhD with David but ended up working at Transversal instead, which was a company he co-founded to do some interesting work in the search engine space! It's what got me into software development as a career so I'm always grateful to him

Just read his post where he describes receiving his diagnosis and initial treatment.

https://itila.blogspot.com/2015/08/unexpected-signs-of-malig...

Now I feel emotionally exhausted. I really hope I live long enough to see cancer eradicated.

Spoiler, it wasn't. There were 3 more. And a final interview

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