Foot note number 8 of the essay notes that Michael Nielsen made the same two observations when reading an early version of the essay. For some reason Paul Graha

Foot note number 8 of the essay notes that Michael Nielsen made the same two observations when reading an early version of the essay. For some reason Paul Graham has decided to make the footnote labels almost invisible in the text of the essay. I agree that it is best that in short essay reading that skipping the footnotes until reading the whole essay is usually the best way to approach them, but I like when they were more visable. In the spirit of the essay though, it is nice he has not changed older essays to fit this new style and one can go back and see the footnote indicators get lighter over time.