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Jan 18 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The design agency Bureau has been working on a fascinating format for ebooks, trying for the benefits of high-craft fixed page layout in a scroll-driven, flexible-layout context.

Essay on their format (videos 2/3 through): bureau.rocks/books/manifest…

Demo: typographyandlayout.com/demo
Books are a sequence of "spreads", which have a fixed page number and a fixed page layout (possibly several to accommodate smaller screens). You can scroll continuously or use the keyboard to navigate through spreads. The spreads are contiguously stacked but each has its own URL.
Ofc, looking at the specific examples here, there's no one technique that hasn't been done before, e.g. on NYT special longform pieces. But I like the systematization: those longford pieces have always been full-bespoke; I can imagine creating a library of spread templates.
Their manifesto does a great job demonstrating the disaster zone that is e-book layout. bureau.rocks/books/manifest…
Other platforms which attempt a fixed page layout: e.g. on @bubblinapp, here's Aurelius' Meditations: bubblin.io/book/meditatio…. Bubblin scales the physical character size to keep a fixed text range on the page; Bureau will scale a bit but also permits spreads to involve scrolling.
I confess, I don't love a subscription model for books, but I do understand the motivation here, and I'm glad to see someone trying it.

Thanks to @SergeTymo for pointing Bureau's work out to me.

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More from @andy_matuschak

Andy Matuschak Profile picture
Dec 23, 2021
Holden K's been writing a great series exploring why depictions of non-ironic utopias are so rare / unappealing.

I really love this suggestion in his latest post—that you can get a feel for a "moderate" utopia thru media centered on sports or performing arts.
Earnest depictions of utopias often seem dreary because everything's too perfect—no telos!—but of course in these shows struggle for material scarcity is broadly replaced by struggle for creative expression, excellence, actualization, etc. Quite a beautiful vision, in some sense!
Holden's posts:
cold-takes.com/why-describing…
cold-takes.com/visualizing-ut…
cold-takes.com/utopia-links/
Read 4 tweets
Andy Matuschak Profile picture
Dec 15, 2021
One unexpectedly great application for Apple Watch: stochastic self-sampling. e.g. here's my mental energy level throughout the day.

Can use notification actions to respond in one tap, so it's low-friction enough for 10+ prompts per day; and works when away from computer.
That's >500 data points over the past couple months. Hard to imagine collecting that if I had to remember to diary, or even if it required pulling out my phone.
I used this app to collect the data: apps.apple.com/us/app/tracker…

Unfortunately, it only supports one prompt at a time. I'd also like to sample eg:
- "How curious am I feeling?"
- "How dutiful am I feeling?"
- "What am I thinking about?" (can use scribble / watch mic / top list)
Read 7 tweets
Andy Matuschak Profile picture
Dec 13, 2021
In 1907, William James complains that psychologists have ignored the topic of "the energies of men"—that is, the practical stamina available for "running one's mental and moral operations".

Have good frameworks emerged for this in the past century?

jstor.org/stable/2177575
There's "cognitive load", "ego depletion", "self-efficacy", etc… none of these really seem to hit the nail on the head here.
"Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater."
Read 5 tweets
Andy Matuschak Profile picture
Dec 13, 2021
In "Where Is My Flying Car", Hall argues that what we really value in cities isn't necessarily physical density, but *temporal* density—ie low travel time. If all points were 5x further apart, but we move 5x faster, we'd prefer it: everyone could have more space. Is this right? /
One reason I like cities is definitely proximity to services and friends. Dozens of excellent restaurants and people within a thirty minute trip. But I also like running into people randomly, serendipitously. Living in a city is like shaking a fuller snow globe!
Not sure if temporal density is equivalent to physical density for the purposes of serendipity. If I only run into people at destinations, then there'd be no change if everything were spread out: the same people visit the same restaurants. But I run into people while walking!
Read 5 tweets
Andy Matuschak Profile picture
Nov 23, 2021
Thinking about "game tape" for thinking, inspired by @tayroga, @mindy_online, past Twitch streams. I notice that thinking has limited legibility—tape captures only a fraction of what's going on. Which useful categories of feedback are possible? Which blocked by illegibility?
Some useful feedback I've gotten:
- are you being captured by the formal structure you created here, rather than by some real purpose?

- are you spending so much time reviewing those references because the main problem seems to hard, and you're avoiding it?
But I mostly haven't gotten useful feedback. Makes me wonder about the "span" of this format, at least interpersonally.

One barrier is that so much of effective thinking is instinctual: I often can't "justify" why I'm thinking about X; trying to do so too early will cause harm.
Read 8 tweets
Andy Matuschak Profile picture
Nov 14, 2021
Sometimes, singing in tight vocal harmony, certain chords locked just right will produce a hair-raising effect: the air buzzes, the sound gets "fuller," goosebumps, psychosomatic tears. I think it comes from overtone overlaps? Sharing rabbit hole and questions so far:
Unfortunately, it's hard to convey this effect with a recording—it's much stronger if you're producing it. So I guess I'm mostly talking to other vocalists.

The first key bit seems to be that voices can sing in just intonation, i.e. whole number ratios: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_into…
(I'm totally skipping explanation of overtones, temperament, and the harmonic series here… for a wonderful intro, see @vihartvihart's )
Read 13 tweets

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