AI Knows the Code. We Know the Story

 

A machine can parse “red” down to numerical terms: hex codes and RGB values. To AI, the word is nothing more than coordinates on a chart. Efficient. Accurate. Sterile.

But when we say “red,” we’re not speaking math.

We’re summoning brake lights glowing in the fog.

We’re tasting strawberries stolen from a neighbor’s garden.

We’re remembering that sweater someone wore the first night we fell in love.

In other words, we’re not just naming a color. We’re tapping into a web of memory, story, and sensation. Words carry with them the fingerprints of lived experience.

And this is where machines stumble. They’re excellent at patterns … finding them, repeating them, remixing them until the rhythm sounds right. But sounding right and feeling right are two different things.

Humans notice the gap. Not consciously, not always with language for it, but we sense it. We read a piece of text and something just isn’t there. The pulse is missing. The connective tissue of actual life hasn’t soaked through the words.

That’s why study after study shows humans outperform AI detectors when it comes to sniffing out machine-made text. We aren’t just scanning for form. We’re searching for connection. And when it’s absent, the silence is deafening.

Because words don’t live in a dataset. They live in us. They carry the weight of moments machines will never taste, touch, or remember.

And that weight makes all the difference.

The Cycle of Creation

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
(Dombrosky's Six Steps of Idea Realization)

Tom Dombrosky had a way of distilling truth into six-word mantras, the kind you’d find scrawled on a lipstick-stained napkin at a bar that serves whiskey neat and disappointment straight up. 

When we were working on client campaigns, he felt we typically pushed through 6 distinctive phases he called The Creative Process. But really, it was just life condensed into six predictable steps.

Step 1: This is awesome.

You’ve got an idea. A big one. The kind that makes you sit up straighter, crack your knuckles, and declare: This. This is the thing. You picture awards, applause, possibly a parade in your honor. You tell Tom, and he nods, unimpressed.

Step 2: This is tricky.

Turns out, your genius idea has some... logistical issues. Like how a trapeze act sounds great until you remember you’re afraid of heights. You’re making adjustments, problem-solving, doing the work. But the excitement is fading, and there’s an itch at the back of your skull whispering, Hey, this might suck.

Step 3: This is shit.

Yeah. It definitely sucks. What the hell were you thinking? Who let you do this? Where is the nearest exit?

Step 4: I am shit.

It’s not just the work that’s terrible ... you’re terrible. A fraud. A hack. A pretender who should’ve been stopped years ago, preferably by someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth. 

Step 5: This might be okay.

But then... maybe. Maybe there’s something salvageable. A spark. A sliver of light breaking through the wreckage. You breathe. You tweak. You fix. You remember why you started this in the first place.

Step 6: This is awesome.

Holy shit. You did it. And somehow, it works. Maybe even better than you imagined. 

Once through the process, and reviewing my output, I can visualize Tom raising a glass, and toasting me with a grin. “Told you,” he says. "And tomorrow, we get to do it all over again."

________________________

For a few years, Tom and I were partners in a small advertising agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was the senior. I was the junior. I learned a lot, made a lot of money, and had one helluva good time. Here are a few Dombrosky stories you might appreciate:

Chutzpah

Research

It Wasn't Pretty

Kicking Butt in Restaurant Marketing

My customers love me but ...

 

After speaking engagements, I’m often approached by local/regional restaurants and retailers, who ask, “Customers love us, why are sales slipping?”

They’re confused and worried.  The reviews glow, the regulars gush, and yet the sales chart looks like it’s slowly melting.

I aways answer with the uncomfortable truth: “Love and growth are not the same thing.”

And then I tell them that before they need my services as a marketing writer, they have to take a hard look at their operation and I offer the following suggestions:

Maybe your customers are aging out. The 35-year-old customer who built your business is now 55 with different priorities. They still adore you, they just don’t buy like they used to. What are you doing to introduce yourself to the next generation?

Maybe you’ve stopped reaching out. Networking felt tedious. Social media felt like feeding a slot machine. So you coasted. Markets don’t reward coasting. They reward visibility. What are you doing to keep in front of prospective customers?

Maybe you’ve stopped asking for referrals. The people who love you know people just like them, but you’re not asking for the introduction. We’ll build a whole email funnel before we say, “Hey, send your friends.”

Maybe it’s time to look at your staff. Do they have the right training and energy? Customers can feel when they’re an interruption instead of a welcome guest and they quietly retreat, often to one of your competitors.

Maybe you’re not keeping your website fresh and up-to-date. If your website feels like a time capsule, you’re not charming. You’re invisible. People start online. Look at your other outreach too, from signage to advertising.

Maybe you’re not keeping up with subtle changes. Do your hours match modern life? Has your neighborhood changed.

Maybe you’ve changed. Is your heart still in it? Enthusiasm has a scent. So does burnout.

What’s happening in most of these cases isn’t failure. It’s drift.

It’s easy to confuse affection with momentum. Love is maintenance fuel. Growth requires motion. You can be deeply loved and slowly fading at the same time, like a band that still fills reunion tours but hasn’t written a new song in years.

You’re starting from a good place and the fix isn’t a shiny new tactic. It’s less glamorous than that:

Stay visible.

Invite new people in.

Train your staff.

Update the website.

Review the changes in your market.

Find your spark again.

Once you feel confident about your understanding of (and how you’re addressing) these key areas, then we can determine if I’m the best writer for your needs.

#451

 

This is my 451st blog post, which feels both satisfying and deflating at the same time.

On one hand, 450 posts is a real accomplishment for a writer. That’s years of thinking, drafting, rewriting, second-guessing, publishing, and occasionally discovering a typo five minutes after hitting “post.”

More importantly, it’s consistency. These posts became a kind of public workshop for me … not some frozen “best of” portfolio, but ongoing proof that I still write, still think, still care about the craft. And, If I do say so myself, a lot of them are pretty damn good.

But it’s impossible to ignore the weirdness of hitting a writing quantity milestone in the age of AI. Because 450 blog posts used to sound like an enormous amount of work. Now it sounds like a few decent prompts and an afternoon.

Does that diminish the accomplishment? Not really.

These weren’t generated. They were lived through. They’re 450 examples of me paying attention, wrestling with ideas, trying to offer something of value in a world increasingly optimized for speed over thought.

Still, AI changes the emotional math a little.

We live in a culture that worships output. Faster content. More posts. Infinite takes. Quantity has become a substitute for judgment because numbers are easier than taste.

Meanwhile, the real question: “Was it worth reading?” barely gets invited into the conversation.

So yeah, I’m proud of the 450. Not because it took a long time. Not because AI can’t do it faster. But because they represent me.

And I have a feeling (OK, maybe a hope) that that’s about to matter more than ever.

_________________________

Here are 1/2 dozen posts ... a representative sample of the 450:

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/03/contractions.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/02/blizzard.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/04/efficiency-at-cost-of.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/02/your-call-is-important-to-us-just-not.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2021/08/oxford-comma-defenders-rejoice.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/02/i-hope-this-message-finds-you-well.html

This is human. That is machine.

 

What irritates me isn’t that AI can write. It’s that people are suddenly acting like writing was sacred all along. Like we’ve been protecting some great artistic tradition that, in practice, we’ve spent the last decade flattening into listicles, summaries, and keyword-stuffed oatmeal.

Now the oatmeal writes itself.

And everyone’s shocked.

There’s also this quiet panic underneath the conversation: this need to draw a hard line and say, “This is human. That is machine.” As if the label alone guarantees meaning.

But readers don’t experience writing that way. They never have.

They read something and think:

• Did this hold my attention?
• Did it give me something?
• Was it worth the minutes it took from my life?

That’s it. No moral philosophy attached.

Which is why this whole debate feels slightly off. We’re arguing about authorship like it’s the main ingredient, when most readers are just deciding if the meal tasted good.

Still, I don’t think this means writing is dead or that human voice doesn’t matter. If anything, it matters more … but in a narrower, sharper way. Because now there’s no hiding in competence.

If all you’re doing is writing clearly structured, perfectly fine sentences, you’re competing with something that can do that instantly, endlessly, without getting bored or needing coffee.

So the question shifts. Not “Can you write?” But “Do you have anything to say that isn’t interchangeable?”

That’s a harder question. And a more interesting one.

I find myself less defensive about AI than I expected. Maybe because it’s exposing something we’ve been avoiding: a lot of writing wasn’t as uniquely human as we claimed. It was just… adequate. And adequacy has a new competitor.

So no, I don’t particularly care if something was written by a person or a machine ... at least not at first glance.

I care if it makes me pause. If it nudges my thinking a few degrees off center. If it feels like someone, somewhere, actually meant it.

And that’s the part I’m not convinced can be automated.

Verbs > Adjectives

When you’re writing marketing materials, you can almost hear the adjectives whispering: “Use me,” they say: “I’m bold. I’m innovative. I’m world-class.”

And sure, they sound nice. Cushy. Soft-focus lens nice.

But adjectives are freeloaders. They hang around the page, puffing up their chests, doing absolutely nothing. They don’t change the reader. They don’t change the story. They’re the linguistic equivalent of putting sequins on a potato.

Verbs, on the other hand, walk in like they own the place.

Verbs shove the story forward. Verbs make your reader picture something happening. Verbs leave fingerprints.

You can ignore an adjective. In fact, the human brain is so used to marketing adjectives that it skims right past them, the way you skim past those long store receipts that list coupons you’ll never use.

But a verb?

A verb grabs your attention by the shirt collar.

Think about the difference between:

“Our platform is innovative”

versus

“Our platform reshapes how work gets done.”

One is a pillow. The other is a punch.

Verbs force you to get specific. You can’t hide behind them. You can’t paint a foggy generality and call it strategy. You have to decide what’s actually happening. What the product does. What the customer feels. What the world looks like after the thing lands in it.

And that specificity makes your writing harder to ignore.

Readers don’t want adjectives. They want action. They want motion. They want to see something change. Verbs give them that. Verbs are tiny machines that pull the reader forward, sentence by sentence, until they’re somewhere new.

So the next time you’re staring down that blinking cursor and the adjectives start whispering sweet nothings, remember: they’re not here to help you.

Reach for the verbs. Reach for the words that crack, shift, lift, shake, pull, deliver.

Write like your copy means business. Write like you want the reader’s brain to sit up and pay attention.

Your audience will thank you by sticking around for the next sentence.

And the next one after that.

 

アメリカのファストフード店

 

The Wendy’s matcha latte is cold and refreshing.

You can’t get a matcha latte in a Wendy’s restaurant in the United States. But you can in Kyoto, Japan.

Which raises the question: Of all the places to stop for a drink in Kyoto, why pick a US-based fast food chain?

Fair question. When traveling outside the US, the majority of my meals are local specialties … here in Japan: sushi, yakitori, ramen, onigiri, tempura, gyoza, and, of course, egg salad sandwiches from 7-11 (that’s another story).

But I also like to stick my head into the franchises from home to see how the menus have been localized. Such as, here in Japan:

The shrimp nuggets or edamame & corn at McDonald’s … the Spam & Cheese Burger or Peanut Butter Royale Burger at Burger King … the Wa-fu Chicken Cutlet Sandwich or Pepper Mayo Twister at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Maybe it’s the marketer in me. Maybe it’s a way of saying, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

_________________________

According to Google Translate, アメリカのファストフード店  is Japanese for "American fast food restaurant"

Why did the robot cross the road?

I stumbled across a video of a delivery robot stuck at a crosswalk. It wasn’t broken or confused. It was waiting for a human to press the WALK button.

It had already navigated sidewalks, avoided people, delivered a package like a polite little mule with Wi-Fi. But when it got to the road, it stopped and asked a human to press the button.

And the human got annoyed. Understandable. But was this the robot's fault? It didn’t fail, it just hit the edge of a system that was never built with it in mind. The short story: We keep building these eerily capable systems and then act surprised when they trip over something dumb we forgot to redesign.

So we keep getting frustrated because AI, or platforms, or whatever tool didn’t magically fix our workflow this week. “It doesn’t work.” “It feels off.” “It’s too robotic.”

Maybe.

Or maybe it’s our assumption that if you just add enough tools -- AI for writing, automation for outreach, analytics for everything -- you’ll eventually hit some kind of frictionless flow. But what you usually get is a faster version of a clunky system. We’re forcing new capabilities into old systems and acting surprised when it feels like wearing dress shoes to run a marathon

Consider this: If AI were actually native to how most people work, a lot of those workflows wouldn’t exist in their current form. Steps would disappear. Roles would shift. Some things we treat as essential would look unnecessary.

The robot getting stuck at the crosswalk isn’t the problem. It’s just pointing at one: We keep waiting for smarter technology, when what we actually need are systems that make sense for it.

_________________________

NOTE: The person's actual reaction/response to the robot will be the subject of another post.

Show, Don’t Tell

There’s a moment in every piece of marketing where the audience decides whether they believe you. And in that moment, nothing, and I mean nothing, beats demonstration.

Not flowery claims. Not “premium quality” fluff. Not enough adjectives to smother a thesaurus.

Demonstration is the creative equivalent of flipping on the lights and saying: “Watch this.”

The Heinz Lesson

Two bottles. Heinz vs. Generic. Two identical dollops on a plate. Fast-forward 3 minutes, 39 seconds.

The generic catsup sweats like it’s in a job interview. Heinz stays thick, proud, and fully composed.

The line: “Actual photograph of water running out of other catsup… One reason you may pay a little more for Heinz.”

No bragging. No begging. Just proof.

That’s demonstration: the kind of truth people can’t unsee.

Other Masters of the Reveal

Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?”

A guy in a lab coat obliterates iPhones, golf balls, and garden rakes. No features list needed, the blender turns absurdity into credibility.

Dyson vacuums

James Dyson didn’t say “better suction.” He dumped piles of debris on floors and showed every competitor leaving a mess. Demonstration in the universal language of dirt.

Apple product launches

Steve Jobs didn’t claim the iPod was small. He pulled it from his jeans pocket and nailed it with the line: “1,000 songs in your pocket." Boom. Demo. Story over.

Swiffer

Their infomercial-style wipe-on/wipe-off comparison made old mops look like medieval torture devices. One swipe = demonstration. Millions of sales.

 

Why Demonstration Works (and Why Writers Forget It)

Writers like telling. Telling is comfortable. But comfortable is not persuasive.

Demonstration forces the audience to participate in the discovery. They see it. They believe it. And belief they arrive at themselves is belief that sticks.

So instead of reaching for the adjective shelf, ask:

What can I show instead of say?

What moment proves the message?

What truth is compelling enough to leave unadorned?

Because the brands that win aren’t the loudest, they’re the clearest. They let the product do the talking, while the copy sets the stage for the sale of either the brand and/or the actual product.

Sometimes all you need is a plate, a dollop, and a little pool of water to say everything.

Music On or Music Off?

 

When people talk about productivity, someone eventually asks: "Do you listen to music while you work?"

The question tends to split the room into two tribes. The music people and the silence people.

The music people talk about it the way athletes talk about pre-game rituals. The perfect playlist. that supposedly turns your brain into a productivity engine.

I’ve tried it. I really have. But most of the time I prefer silence. Not the monastery kind of silence. Just ordinary quiet. The hum of the room. A keyboard clicking away. Maybe the faint sound of a truck going by outside. Just enough stillness for thoughts to stretch their legs without tripping over a drum solo.

Music, for me, tends to behave like a guest who doesn’t understand they’re supposed to be in the background. Especially if there are lyrics. The moment someone starts singing, my brain abandons the sentence I’m writing and runs after the words like a dog chasing a tennis ball. Now I’m halfway through a paragraph and mentally finishing someone else’s chorus.

This is why people who can write while blasting pop music strike me as mildly supernatural. I imagine their brains have some internal bouncer who politely escorts the lyrics away while they continue typing like nothing’s happening.

Mine doesn't have that feature.

Silence, on the other hand, is honest. It doesn’t try to hype you up or set a mood. It just sits there like an empty stage waiting for something to happen.

And when you’re writing, that’s usually what you need: space.

Occasionally, I’ll allow instrumental music … music that knows how to behave. No vocals. No dramatic attempts to steal the spotlight. Just a quiet layer of sound, like fog rolling through the background of a scene.

Even then, however, I keep it low. When I’m writing, music should feel like furniture, not a parade.

Recently, the  “music while working” conversation has been focused on optimization ... the magical combination of lo-fi beats and rain sounds engineered by algorithms that promise “maximum cognitive flow.” As if your brain were a coffee machine and all you needed was the right settings.

It’s a nice idea, but the reality is much less glamorous. A lot of writing involves sitting there, staring at a sentence that refuses to cooperate, and trying to nudge it into shape without making it worse. Silence helps with that. It keeps the room from getting crowded.

Music has its place … on walks, in the car, while cooking dinner. But when I’m trying to think, I’d rather not invite a band into the room. My brain already has enough noise in it.

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 2: CON

Communities around the country are rejecting data center projects.

In 2023, two data center projects were canceled because communities pushed back. In 2024, it was six. Last year it jumped to twenty-five. And right now, nearly a hundred projects are facing organized opposition.

Some people see those numbers and worry. I don't.

In fact, it may be one of the healthiest signs of local democracy we've seen in years.

Because for a long time, the assumption was that if a developer showed up with enough money and enough lawyers, communities were expected to say yes. The project was inevitable. The growth was inevitable. The future was inevitable. The public hearing was mostly theater.

But lately people have started asking a surprisingly reasonable question:

"What exactly are we getting in return?"

And that's where the conversation gets uncomfortable.

Because nobody wakes up hoping a giant warehouse full of blinking machines gets built behind the community center. Data centers aren't exactly charming. No windows. No personality. Just a huge concrete box sitting next to a substation.

The difference is that unlike a factory, they employ relatively few people once construction is complete.

Unlike housing, they don't solve a shortage. Unlike a shopping district, they don't create a place where people actually gather.

They consume land, power, water, and infrastructure while often delivering benefits that feel strangely abstract to the people living next door, but enrich tech companies and billionaires.

Cloud capacity. AI training. Reliability. Fast data transfer. Those things matter. But they don't always matter to the specific community being asked to host them. And that's the tension.

Supporters often argue that if a town rejects a project, the investment will simply move somewhere else. That's true. But that doesn't automatically mean the town made a mistake.

We've seen this movie before too.

For most of the twentieth century, communities were told they needed to accept whatever large infrastructure project arrived at their doorstep because progress demanded it. Highways. Industrial facilities. Power plants. Urban renewal projects. The logic was always similar: accept the disruption today because prosperity will arrive tomorrow. 

Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes the prosperity flowed elsewhere while the local community kept the noise, traffic, pollution, and land-use consequences. 

History is full of places that were told they were standing in the way of progress when they were actually asking entirely reasonable questions about costs.

Infrastructure has a quiet, ruthless logic to it. But so does self-preservation.

A community's job is not to maximize national computing capacity. A community's job is to look after the people who already live there. Those are not always the same thing.

Right now the new railroad analogy gets thrown around a lot. Data centers are supposedly the railroads of the AI era. Maybe. But railroads connected towns. They moved people, goods, and opportunity directly into local economies.

A data center is different. Most residents will never enter one. Many won't work in one. Some may barely notice what it does at all beyond the transmission lines and substations that accompany it.

That's not an argument that data centers have no value. Clearly they do.

The internet runs on physical infrastructure. AI runs on physical infrastructure. Modern life runs on physical infrastructure. The question isn't whether data centers are useful. The question is whether every community has an obligation to host them.

And the answer may be no.

Sometimes the right decision is to negotiate. Sometimes it's to demand stronger protections. Sometimes it's to ask for a better deal. And sometimes it's to look at a proposal and conclude that the costs outweigh the benefits.

Not every patch of land needs to become part of the next technology boom. Not every community needs to sacrifice its priorities because a developer says the future depends on it.

The train may indeed be coming. But communities aren't required to build a station every time someone lays track in their direction.

History suggests that saying no is sometimes just as important as saying yes.

_________________________

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 1: PRO

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy INTRODUCTION

_______________________

Get the Details: 

• Data center impact on local communities: Balancing growth infrastructure and community outcomes. - Baker Tilly US, LLP/Baker Tilly Advisory Group. LP
  
  
• How data centers are transforming local communities - Fast Company
  
  
• Why are communities pushing back against data centers? - The Harvard Gazette
  
  
• The Debate on Data Center Development: Costs, Benefits, and Community Responses - The Alliance for Civic Engagement 

• From Energy Use to Air Quality, the Many Ways Data Centers Affect US Communities - World Resources Institute

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy Part 1: PRO

 

Communities around the country are rejecting data center projects.

In 2023, two data center projects were canceled because communities pushed back. In 2024, it was six. Last year it jumped to twenty-five. And right now, nearly a hundred projects are facing organized opposition. Historically, about 40% of those end up getting canceled.

I get the instinct. Nobody wakes up hoping a giant warehouse full of blinking machines gets built behind the community center. Data centers aren’t exactly charming. No windows, no personality, just a huge concrete box sitting next to a substation.

So the local resistance makes sense on a human level. People worry about water, power, land use, taxes. Fair questions.

But a lot of the rhetoric sounds like people believe stopping a project will somehow stop the technology itself. As if AI will glance at the zoning board minutes and say, “Well, I guess we’ll just pack it up.”

That’s not how infrastructure works. Infrastructure is like water, it flows somewhere. Block it here and it doesn’t evaporate. It just runs downhill until it finds a place willing to dig a channel.

We’ve seen this movie before: When the railroads were built in the 1800s, some towns fought them. Noise, land disputes, disruption. Perfectly reasonable concerns. The rail companies responded in the most practical way possible: they went around those towns.

The tracks didn’t disappear. The trains didn’t stop. The map just changed.

A few decades later, the places connected to the rails were booming and the bypassed towns were historical markers and antique stores.

Infrastructure has a quiet, ruthless logic to it. It doesn’t argue with you. It just keeps moving.

And right now the new railroad is computing power.

Data centers are the physical skeleton of the internet era we’re walking into. AI models, cloud services, streaming, research, startups ... it all lives in racks of servers somewhere, humming away like a mechanical beehive.

Which means if a community blocks a project, the investment doesn’t disappear; it relocates.

The jobs go there. The tax base goes there. The engineers go there. The coffee shops that follow engineers go there.

And, that “there” might not even be the United States.

And that’s the part people seem oddly relaxed about.

We spend a lot of time arguing online about AI ethics, AI safety, AI alignment, AI consciousness … big philosophical stuff. Meanwhile the physical infrastructure that actually runs the whole show is quietly becoming a zoning dispute about ugly warehouses.

It’s like debating literature while refusing to build libraries.

To be clear, this isn’t an argument that every data center should go wherever a developer wants. Communities should absolutely push for good deals, environmental safeguards, smarter planning. Nobody wants to trade a forest for a parking lot full of diesel generators.

But there’s a difference between negotiating the terms and pretending the train isn’t coming.

Because the train is very much coming.

The only real question is whether it stops in your town or keeps rolling until it finds a place that will build a station. History suggests it won’t wait long.

_________________________

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 2: CON

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy INTRODUCTION

_______________________

Get the Details: 

• Data center impact on local communities: Balancing growth infrastructure and community outcomes. - Baker Tilly US, LLP/Baker Tilly Advisory Group. LP
  
  
• How data centers are transforming local communities - Fast Company
  
  
• Why are communities pushing back against data centers? - The Harvard Gazette
  
  
• The Debate on Data Center Development: Costs, Benefits, and Community Responses - The Alliance for Civic Engagement 

• From Energy Use to Air Quality, the Many Ways Data Centers Affect US Communities - World Resources Institute

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy

 

Few local issues generate as much heat right now as data centers.

Across the country, communities are debating proposals that promise investment, tax revenue, and a place in the AI economy. At the same time, residents are raising concerns about land use, power consumption, water resources, noise, and quality of life.

What's interesting is that both sides have compelling arguments.

The pro-data-center case argues that computing infrastructure is becoming as important to the 21st century as railroads, highways, and power grids were to previous generations. Rejecting projects may simply push investment, jobs, and innovation somewhere else.

The anti-data-center case argues that communities are not obligated to accept every project presented as "progress," especially when the local costs may outweigh the local benefits.

To me, the debate isn't really about buildings full of servers. It's about who gets to decide what progress looks like … and who benefits and who bears the cost of it. 

So, instead of writing an editorial taking one side over the other, I thought it would be more interesting and challenging (and perhaps informative) to write about 500 words -- opinion, not technical -- on each and then suggest you read both as first step in understanding the opposing viewpoints and making a decision about which side of the debate you find yourself on.

PART 1: PRO explores why communities may want to embrace data centers -- while demanding reasonable safeguards and accountability.

PART 2: CON explores why communities may be justified in saying no, even when developers argue the future depends on it.

Whether you're strongly for, strongly against, or still undecided, I encourage you to read both.

_________________________

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 1: PRO

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 2: CON

NOTE: Both posts include links to credible sources that offer
more specific information on both sides of the data center debate.

All about the "!"

I'm not a big user of exclamation points. They feel like the literary equivalent of someone grabbing your arm mid-sentence to shout this matters, pay attention, I’m excited, you should be too! It’s a bit desperate.

Maybe I’ve just been online too long. Everything’s urgent there and the exclamation point has been drafted into service like a cheap confetti cannon: loud, disposable, and mostly covering up the fact that not much actually happened.

As a writer, I’d rather earn the feeling. If something’s funny, let it land. If it’s sharp, let it cut. Slapping an exclamation point at the end seems like an unnecessary short cut. Good writing, trusts the reader to meet it halfway, without all the waving and shouting.

I’m not saying ban them. I use one now and then, like hot sauce. But if every sentence needs a kick, maybe the problem isn’t punctuation. Maybe the writing’s just bland. 

So, I think word processors need a function that only allows one exclamation point to be used every 50,000 keystrokes and I encourage someone more technical that me to build an app that, when you read an exclamation point online, an "applause" sign will appear and flash.

And like author F. Scott Fitzgerald, many writers are very opinionated about this punctuation mark:

I bet when all the punctuation marks have a party, they quietly look at exclamation point's wife and think, that poor woman. – Dana Gould

Never trust an exclamation point. – Linda Urban

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. – Terry Pratchett

In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly. – Lynne Truss

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another. – Tom Wolfe

In almost all situations that do not involve immediate physical danger or great surprise, you should think twice before using an exclamation mark. If you have thought twice and the exclamation mark is still there, think about it three times, or however many times it takes until you delete it. –Howard Mittelmark,

So far as good writing goes, the use of the exclamation mark is a sign of failure. It is the literary equivalent of a man holding up a card reading LAUGHTER to a studio audience. – Miles Kington

 Most of us were trained to distrust the exclamation point—at worst, to hate its cheery, unhinged energy. - Ann Handley 

An excessive use of exclamation marks is a certain indication of an unpractised writer or of one who wants to add a spurious dash of sensation to something unsensational. – Henry Watson Fowler

Never use three exclamation points when one will do. – Christine Edwards

And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. – Terry Pratchett

Only one thing more mortifying than having an exclamation mark removed by an editor: an exclamation mark added in. – Lynne Truss

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. – Elmore Leonard

The exclamation point is a loud party-goer, demanding attention. Overdone, it can be annoying. – James Scott Bell 

Even the lauded TV show Seinfeld weighed in on the exclamation point:

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DEFINITION: The exclamation mark, !, also sometimes referred to as the exclamation point, is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, for example: "Watch out!". Similarly, a bare exclamation mark (with nothing before or after) is often established in warning signs.

The exclamation mark is often used in writing to make a character seem as though they are shouting and/or excited/surprised. It can also be used in fiction writing for a person who is doing the same thing but in real life. 

Overuse results in the loss of the excitement or urgency it represents.

I woke up in Tokyo wearing someone else’s pants

After 15 hours on a plane, I took a one hour bus ride followed by a short walk to my Tokyo hotel. The plan: shower, sleep, and leave early to catch the bullet train to Osaka.

 
Let me make a confession: I’m a marketing copywriter, not a travel writer. Which is why I couldn’t pass on the headline “I woke up in Tokyo wearing someone else’s pants”. You see, my hotel, like many others in Japan, supplies pajamas for their guests. So the pants I wore to bed were the hotel’s, not mine. Boring, but the set up for a titillating click bait headline.
 
Which brings me to an important lesson for writers. Especially marketing writers.
 
Make sure that your copy/content delivers on your headline's promise. Otherwise, not only will you lose your audience, but chances are you’ll anger them and never be able to earn their attention, much less their business, again.