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Ask HN: Paper pad "self-prompting" as rubber-duck-with-a-context-length?

1•xeonmc•4h ago
The conventional advice of speaking to an inanimate object never quite worked for me, as it presumed that speaking emphatically is the most direct mode of that person's natural communication. For myself, it is written communication that comes more naturally and direct, having trouble with indecisive awkwardness of mental-backspacing in the middle of a sentence, and often forgetting what the prior self-conversation was talking about.

However, while typing into a monologue channel is indeed fast and direct and augments my poor mental context-length of verbal communication, the ephemeral, delible nature of uncommitted text undermines the purpose of being forced to formulating a "good-enough" communication as a cognitive device to reifying a thought that would otherwise be in flux.

What I have found to be a good balance that achieves both committal pressure of speech and a longer context-length of text is writing on a tearable paper pad with ink and not pencil. You are still allowed to cross-out words in a pinch but the spatial cost of this means that there is still a slight pressure to force you to stop and formulate before committing, without being debilitatingly permanent.

Essentially, you manually hand write a chat log while mentally alternating between the role of a prompter and a silicon ducky, making a point to delineate between the two by drawing a horizontal line across the page.

I'm wondering if I'm alone in this or if anyone here are also similarly idiosyncratic to have this work for them as well?

Judge smacks down Pentagon plan to slash university research funding awards

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/18/judge_pauses_dod_university_funding_cuts/
1•rntn•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Tips for a lifetime Windows user switching to Mac

https://gist.github.com/rofrol/9ddf89e1f7a709bb85c53e1c2d782fa4
1•rofrol•1m ago•0 comments

James Fallows: War-gaming invading or bombing Iran (2004)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/12/will-iran-be-next/303599/
1•dctoedt•4m ago•0 comments

What Is the Most Realistic Submarine Movie Ever Made? [U.S. Naval Institute]

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/october/what-most-realistic-submarine-movie-ever-made
2•bookofjoe•4m ago•0 comments

Ubuntu Adopts Chrony and NTS for Secure Network Time

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/06/ubuntu-chrony-nts-default-25-10
1•ulrischa•6m ago•0 comments

I Built a Kubernetes Cluster at Home (and Why You Should Too)

https://subnetsavy.com/wp-content/uploads/articles/build-k8-pi.html
1•subnetsavy•7m ago•0 comments

Midjourney launches its first AI video generation model, V1

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/midjourney-launches-its-first-ai-video-generation-model-v1/
1•minimaxir•8m ago•0 comments

Stop Using Dangerous Faucets, Regulator Warns

https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/faucets/stop-using-kitchen-faucets-due-to-lead-exposure-risks-a4216002752/
2•perihelions•9m ago•0 comments

Silicon Valley Execs Join the Army as Officers (But Won't Attend Boot Camp)

https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valley-execs-join-the-army-as-officers-but-wont-have-to-attend-boot-camp-2000617223
2•ks2048•10m ago•0 comments

Building AI Agents

1•wander8jackson•11m ago•0 comments

Online game proven to reduce partisan animosity

https://phys.org/news/2025-06-online-game-proven-partisan-animosity.html
1•PaulHoule•16m ago•0 comments

UI Component Testing Revisited: Modern Implementation with Visual Verification

https://paulhammant.com/2025/06/17/ui-component-testing-revisited/
1•Bigpet•17m ago•1 comments

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt

https://twitter.com/itsalexvacca/status/1935343874421178762
2•mgh2•17m ago•1 comments

The Genius Act Will Bring Economic Chaos

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/genius-act-stablecoin-crypto.html
2•paulpauper•17m ago•0 comments

Bordeaux Observations

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/06/bordeaux-observations.html
1•paulpauper•17m ago•0 comments

The Joneses Aren't That Happy

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2025/06/the-jonese-arent-that-happy/
1•paulpauper•18m ago•0 comments

Comprehensive sovereign solutions empowering European organizations

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/06/16/announcing-comprehensive-sovereign-solutions-empowering-european-organizations/
1•ajdude•18m ago•0 comments

Off with Their Heads: Illustrations of Blemmyes (ca. 1175–1724)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/blemmyes
1•crescit_eundo•22m ago•0 comments

The Language of Form: Lothar Schreyer's Kreuzigung (1920)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kreuzigung
1•crescit_eundo•22m ago•0 comments

Revolut Integrates Lightspark for Fast Bitcoin Payments in Europe

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/revolut-integrates-lightspark-lightning-fast-bitcoin-payments-uk-and-europe
1•janandonly•22m ago•0 comments

xAI faces legal threat over alleged Colossus data center pollution in Memphis

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/06/xai-faces-legal-threat-over-alleged-colossus-data-center-pollution-in-memphis/
4•Bluestein•23m ago•0 comments

Dancing Naked on the Head of a Pin: The Early History of Microphotography

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/dancing-naked-on-the-head-of-a-pin
2•crescit_eundo•23m ago•0 comments

Andrej Karpathy on Software 3.0: Software in the Age of AI

https://www.latent.space/p/s3
1•swah•23m ago•0 comments

Semcache: Semantic Caching for LLMs

https://semcache.io/
1•handfuloflight•24m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Workflow builder for realtime voice agents

4•nikkwong•24m ago•0 comments

Why Is Google Still in One Piece?

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-is-google-still-in-one-piece
1•babelfish•24m ago•0 comments

When can I use Temporal?

https://computus.org/when-can-i-use-temporal/
1•fantunes•25m ago•0 comments

Libxml2's Readme Security Caption

https://github.com/GNOME/libxml2
1•danielovichdk•27m ago•0 comments

ARR growth: Has the game changed that much or is there more behind it?

2•MenesJo•27m ago•0 comments

Women are not dolls

https://thecritic.co.uk/women-are-not-dolls/
2•drankl•27m ago•1 comments