I’ve noticed a product development ethos creep into writing in the last few years. Essays that are “produced” like a book or movie rather than merely written. It’s like people are thinking in terms of target market, focus groups, concept, design, development, execution, launch...
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I don’t think I can work in this mode, but I’m interested in seeing how far others can take it. I think it has potential if people start putting rich, dynamic embedded content in it. Like wolfram’s computational essays. Calculators, dynamic sims etc. https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2017/11/what-is-a-computational-essay/ …
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Takes a good deal more planning to pull such things off. Can’t just stream-of-consciousness wing it. I’ve only ever done one essay built around a sim. And that was an accident since I coded it up as a jokehttps://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/22/social-dark-matter-on-seeing-and-being-seen/ …
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I do like the
@RoamResearch take on this though which is more like a coding notebook with embedded calculations. Still a product ethos, but more tinkering prototypes than finishedShow this thread -
Feels like hardware acceleration in chips, where software functions get absorbed into specialty circuitry. Hardware = basic old-fashioned essay Software = dynamic thinking enabled by a piece of text Hardware acceleration = automate the thinking and put it in the text
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Example: Old-fashioned essay: a personality model that suggests an obvious typology that you informally apply Product-style essay: embed a personality test and maybe tweak the presentation based on responses
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End of conversation
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Ugh, this sort of writing just reads like those old Penthouse Forum letters. The structure is just too "on the nose" to be enjoyable.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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