The web is still a very young medium, and it has been influenced more than anything else by print media design. There is so much more that can be done with text on a screen than is being done today. Citations, drawing, chat, speech-to-text. There are opportunities everywhere, and the bar is low! If we are serious about unlocking the value of knowledge we should consider how to improve every part of the knowledge production stack, and that includes reading. As Laurel Schwulst says: “Imaginative functionality is important, even if it’s only a trace of what was, as it’s still a sketch for a more ideal world.”

That adage of history rhyming, not repeating — does it work on a smaller, local level? You always hear the phrase when talking about spans of centuries. What about a couple weeks, months, or years? One of my favorite parts about publishing writing on the web is seeing how your thoughts rhyme with others'. It becomes a fruitful game of noticing rhymes and nurturing the environment for new rhymes to occur.

I want to see what spacing looks like with these posts. If I do one space instead of two...

What happens?

Will this show double-spaced down instead of single?

We'll find out.

Every time I hear my family recount this story, I cannot believe it. How he thought on his feet so quickly. Where did he learn that? This man was a machinist, educated up to the 8th grade. Perhaps he learned this on the job or elsewhere in his day-to-day life in rural Minnesota. But what do I mean by learn that? It wasn't only that he knew something about the properties of electricity. It was that my great-grandfather took that fact and utilized it in a novel context — a horrifying event like watching a loved one be electrocuted.

I feel like any app I create or blog post I publish cannot match that feat of intuitive brilliance.

Test

Blah blah blah

My great-grandmother was struck by lightning. Witnessing this, my great-grandfather grabbed a bucket of water and threw it against the wall. The electricity jumped towards the water, escaping her body. She only lost a finger.

Every time I hear my family recount this story, I cannot believe it. How he thought on his feet so quickly. Where did he learn that? This man was a machinist, educated up to the 8th grade. Perhaps he learned this on the job or elsewhere in his day-to-day life in rural Minnesota. But what do I mean by learn that? It wasn't only that he knew something about the properties of electricity. It was that my great-grandfather took that fact and utilized it in a novel context — a horrifying event like watching a loved one be electrocuted.

I feel like any app I create or blog post I publish cannot match that feat of intuitive brilliance.

My great-grandmother was struck by lightning. Witnessing this, my great-grandfather grabbed a bucket of water and threw it against the wall. The electricity jumped towards the water, escaping her body. She only lost a finger.

Every time I hear my family recount this story, I cannot believe it. How he thought on his feet so quickly. Where did he learn that? This man was a machinist, educated up to the 8th grade. Perhaps he learned this on the job or elsewhere in his day-to-day life in rural Minnesota. But what do I mean by learn that? It wasn't only that he knew something about the properties of electricity. It was that my great-grandfather took that fact and utilized it in a novel context — a horrifying event like watching a loved one be electrocuted.

I feel like any app I create or blog post I publish cannot match that feat of intuitive brilliance.