4 ms·

This is a pretty impressive study on something seemingly so mundane.

• benbreen 8y ago
  That's gwern's specialty. I highly recommend browsing around his site if you haven't before. It's the only thing on the internet that reminds me of a 17th century book in terms of structure (and eccentricity!).
  • pmiller2 8y ago
    I have not read enough 17th century books to know what you mean. Can you expand on that?
    • benbreen 8y ago
      The main things that come to mind are: - Encyclopedic scope but enormous attention to detail; - eclectic and exploratory approach to organization; - highly individualized prose style; - significant amount of authorial distance, almost mystery (is the name a pseudonym? where do they live? why are they so interested in catnip anyway? etc); - no fixed point of completion, everything is constantly being revised; - subscription-based fundraising model (Patreon is far from new in that regard). Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy is probably the best example I can think of that illustrates what I like about books from that period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy Montaigne's Essays and the works of Robert Boyle and Margaret Cavendish are excellent too though, if you're interested.
  • visarga 8y ago
    Yep, I remember I enjoyed the https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin article very much.