4 ms·

Eh, I'm always looking for and consuming longform content... I never have a backlog because I prefer searching for articles, then consuming them on the spot, wi

Eh, I'm always looking for and consuming longform content... I never have a backlog because I prefer searching for articles, then consuming them on the spot, with no effort of indexing. I guess this quickly becomes very hard to track down exactly what you have read in the past, but if a longform article is that forgettable, do you really want to read it again? Good sources for longform: aeon.co, aldaily.com. longform.org has too much debris to bother with, IMO.

visakanv 11y ago
Out of curiosity, what are the top 10 best longform pieces you've ever read?
- cryoshon 11y ago
  I'll give you the top one: Politics and the English Language by Orwell. Reading this as a young man sent me down a wonderful road of critical thinking and skepticism and altered my life in a major way... no guarantee it'll do the same for you, though.
  - delish 11y ago
    Another long essay on the english language: Tense Present by David Foster Wallace. It touches rhetoric, conservatism vs liberalism, and offers advice w/r/t how to communicate. And it's laugh-out-loud funny. This is the PDF version. Because this is a magazine article, the PDF captures formatting detail that an epub version lacks: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-0...
    - cryoshon 11y ago
      Hm, I can't stand DFW's writing style, but I'll check this out anyway since I admit he has fruitful thoughts on occasion.
  - visakanv 11y ago
    That's one of my favorites too! Good to know. :-)
rogerbinns 11y ago
(I use Pocket, and also got that top 5% thing.) Where this really excels is when you accidentally stumble across something that looks interesting, but can't read it right now. For example someone may mention something in a HN comment, but you have an appointment in 5 minutes. Or it is the workday. Being able to separate the time of discovery from the time of consumption is a big benefit. Some other sources are digg (check every 24 hours, they have links to about 20 items and often enough some are good long reads) and on reddit - eg DepthHub and FoodForThought. I do like that my tablets and phone have Pocket on them, and I can read content anywhere anytime (no connectivity needed, position synced up). Heck I have even done it at a theme park while waiting for rides!

visakanv 11y ago

Out of curiosity, what are the top 10 best longform pieces you've ever read?

cryoshon 11y ago
I'll give you the top one: Politics and the English Language by Orwell. Reading this as a young man sent me down a wonderful road of critical thinking and skepticism and altered my life in a major way... no guarantee it'll do the same for you, though.
- delish 11y ago
  Another long essay on the english language: Tense Present by David Foster Wallace. It touches rhetoric, conservatism vs liberalism, and offers advice w/r/t how to communicate. And it's laugh-out-loud funny. This is the PDF version. Because this is a magazine article, the PDF captures formatting detail that an epub version lacks: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-0...
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    Hm, I can't stand DFW's writing style, but I'll check this out anyway since I admit he has fruitful thoughts on occasion.
- visakanv 11y ago
  That's one of my favorites too! Good to know. :-)

rogerbinns 11y ago

(I use Pocket, and also got that top 5% thing.) Where this really excels is when you accidentally stumble across something that looks interesting, but can't read it right now. For example someone may mention something in a HN comment, but you have an appointment in 5 minutes. Or it is the workday. Being able to separate the time of discovery from the time of consumption is a big benefit. Some other sources are digg (check every 24 hours, they have links to about 20 items and often enough some are good long reads) and on reddit - eg DepthHub and FoodForThought. I do like that my tablets and phone have Pocket on them, and I can read content anywhere anytime (no connectivity needed, position synced up). Heck I have even done it at a theme park while waiting for rides!