This was a busy month. I've been working on finishing up my latest book and preparing for a conference talk. But I have two small things to share with you in this issue. First, I'll explain why I dislike a particular word, and then I'll explain how I quickly copied thousands of small files between two machines. I've also added a new section at the end called "Things to Explore," which covers some resources I'm looking at that you might find valuable.

Please Use "Use."

I don't like the word "utilize." I wince when I read it. As an editor, I will strike that word from prose in almost every situation I can. Anyone who's worked with me knows how I feel about that word. My friend Mason recently asked me to explain why, and he suggested I write about it for this issue.

George Orwell and George Carlin explain my feelings well. George Orwell famously said, "Never use a long word where a short one will do."

And George Carlin, famous for his analysis of language, has a routine where he talks about people using words to sound important:

People add extra words when they want things to sound more important than they really are. "Boarding process". Sounds important. It isn't. It's just a bunch of people getting on an airplane. People like to sound important. Weathermen on television talk about shower activity. Sounds more important than showers."

"Utilize" is a bigger word than "use." It also sounds more important and official than "use. Writing isn't about impressing people with big, important-sounding words; it's about communicating effectively.

Technically, "utilize" and "use" are different words. "Utilize" means "to make use of" or "make practical and effective use of." But most writers who use the word don't know the difference. And I can guarantee you that most readers don't care.

When you write, focus on the impact and outcomes you want. Your goal should be to teach, inform, or persuade your readers. Here's why "use" is often a better choice:

1. Clarity: "Use" is universally understood. "Utilize" can sometimes create unnecessary complexity. You might consider "make use of" or "use effectively" to improve clarity.
2. Accessibility: "Use" is more accessible to a broader range of readers, including those for whom English might not be their first language.
3. Natural flow: "Use" sounds more conversational and helps your writing flow more naturally.

There are situations where "utilize" might be the more appropriate choice. These cases are relatively rare but exist, particularly in technical, scientific, or specialized contexts. For example, precise wording makes all the difference in legal and medical documents. Even in these cases, "use" could work just as well.

Whenever you're tempted to use "utilize," ask yourself these questions:

• Does "utilize" add clarity or precision that "use" doesn't convey, or would "use" work just as well?
• Would replacing "utilize" with "use" significantly change the meaning or impact of your sentence?
• Is the added formality of "utilize" necessary for your audience and context?

More often than not, you'll find that "use" is the better choice. It's clear, concise, and gets the job done.

Copying Thousands of Small Files with rsync

I was getting ready to travel, and I had a lot of audio files to copy to my laptop. I needed to transfer about 80,000 samples, patches, and other files. According to Finder, transferring them would take over 16 hours, so I needed another way.

If you've had to copy many small files from one machine to another using a file manager like Finder, you've also noticed that the process can take a long time. Copying multiple small files this way is slow due to how the standard graphical utilities open and close files. When there are lots of small files, the overhead adds up.

If you're on macOS or Linux and have SSH installed on both machines, you can use the rsynccommand to copy files with compression to speed up the process.

First, make sure you can connect to the remote machine with SSH.

Once you've verified you can connect to the remote machine, use rsync to transfer your files.

For example, to copy the directory ~/sound/wav from a remote machine to the ~/sound/wav location on your local machine, execute this command:

$ rsync -avz user@192.168.1.2:~/sound/wav ~/sound/

Notice that you don't specify the name of the target directory. It'll create it for you.

Here's what the options do:

• -a: Archive mode, which preserves permissions and timestamps.
• -v: Verbose mode, which gives you more information about the transfer so you can monitor it.
• -z: Enables compression during the transfer.
• user@192.168.1.2:~/sound/wav: The source directory on the remote machine. Replace user with your username on the remote machine.
• ~/sound/: The destination directory on your local machine. rsync will create the wav directory inside this path.

To copy files in the reverse direction, change the source and target paths:

$ rsync -avz ~/sound/ user@192.168.1.2:~/sound/wav 

This method works well for transferring large numbers of small files across your network. If you are transferring compressed files, you won't save as much time, but it may still be better than performing these operations through your GUI.

Things to Explore

Here are two things I'm experimenting with now that I already find interesting. I was lucky enough to get a demo of both and immediately saw some use cases.

• Langflow is "a new, visual framework for building multi-agent and RAG applications. It is open-source, Python-powered, fully customizable, LLM and vector store agnostic." It is a promising way to experiment with building some agents.
  Pieces for Developers is "an on-device AI coding assistant that boosts developer productivity by helping you solve complex development tasks through a contextual understanding of your entire workflow." I like that it can use offline models in addition to online ones.

Parting Thoughts

As always, here are a couple of things for you to think about before next month's issue:

1. How do you feel about "utilize" now? What strong opinions do you hold about words or word usage?
2. The next time you encounter "utilize" in writing, run through the three questions in this issue. Put on your editorial hat and see if it was a good choice or if "use" would have worked just as well.

Thanks for reading!

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