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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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      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...

      9 replies 11 retweets 134 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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      No way I can survive in this haute couture essay world. Fully expect people to start announcing their fall or spring collections, doing ramp shoes on Twitter, mini pr campaigns. I’m not doing that much work per word, no way. You can’t make me 🤬

      9 replies 0 retweets 60 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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      I think one reason this bothers me is that my general approach is “quantity to get to quality” and that does not scale with high production values. I do have more “produced” essays going at breaking smart but its bare minimum. Partly parable of pottery class, partly lazy research

      2 replies 0 retweets 21 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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      To be clear, I don’t there’s any quality difference in the mean but there is one in the variance. Production effort narrows the distribution but doesn’t shift the mean. Something something fat tail too. Also new-yorkerization as in dated ledes etc.

      2 replies 0 retweets 12 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Jake Wolff

      Thoughts sparked by this tweet this morninghttps://twitter.com/Jake_Wolff/status/1326193156086505481 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Jake Wolff @Jake_Wolff
      Creative nonfiction writers be like: I first ate a hotdog when I was six years old. I remember the taste, the scent, the summer. SECTION BREAK Hot dogs were invented in 1693 by Steven Hotdog. According to Scientific American, the hotdog is
      Show this thread
      2 replies 0 retweets 12 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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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/ …

      2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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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/ …

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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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 finished

      2 replies 1 retweet 5 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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      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

      10:57 AM - 10 Nov 2020
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      • SisyphusSea Rahul Ramchandani Steven n8 Rob Zidar
      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
        1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 10
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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

          2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
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