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Some people extoll the virtues of long-form writing. But even a site like HN is far too information dense to spend so much time reading one article. It's a diff
by lake99 10y ago
Some people extoll the virtues of long-form writing. But even a site like HN is far too information dense to spend so much time reading one article. It's a different matter when we're learning something of an academic nature, of course. That's why I love summaries such as yours.
- laxatives 10y agoThere's something to said about attention spans in the digital age. Nautilus isn't a single serving news site; it provides long essays with sufficient background to digest a topic you probably don't really spend much time thinking about otherwise. They aren't trying to give you a single sentence summary of some result. They are trying to get you to care about some esoteric subject. This one just happens to gel with the ycombinator crowd.
- daveguy 10y agoI completely agree. I have found a speed reading extension to be quite valuable in getting a quick overview of an article. The speed reading time for this article was 5 minutes at 600 wpm (practiced up from 300 wpm). The speed read is good enough to get the TL;DR and a little more depth about the article. This is the extension I use (it lets you rewind with k and pause with space -- helpful for getting more understanding out): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spreed-speed-read-the-web/ipikiaejjblmdopojhpejjmbedhlibno https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spreed-speed-read-...
- ivan_ah 10y agoHave you tried text-to-speech software? The built-in one for Mac OS X is quite good (Alex, the default voice is not annoying). I set the words per minute to a very high rate, and I get my hacker news while exercising or doing chores around the house. I've completely stopped reading long articles, except when there are intersperced code samples. I highly recommend.