Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
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Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#2How often is a drawing really trashed and restarted?
There's the saying, "Plan to throw one away," but seems like it varies in practice (for software).
There are even books about patching paintings, like Master Disaster: Five Ways to Rescue Desparate Watercolors.
In architecture, it's understood the people, vehicles, and landscape are not as exact as the building or structure, and books encourage reusing magazine clippings, overhead projectors, and copy machines to generally "be quick" on execution.
Would like to see thoughts on comparing current process with the "Draw 50" series, where most of the skeleton is on paper by the first step, but the last is really the super-detailed, totally refined, owl.
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#3"Understanding Poetry, by Dr J. Evans Pritchard, PhD"
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#4Perhaps a controversial view on this particular forum but I find the tendency of a certain type of person* to write about everything in this overly-technical way regardless of whether it is appropriate to the subject matter to be very tiresome ("executing cached heuristics", "constrained the search space").
*I associate it with the asinine contemporary "rationalist" movement (LessWrong et al.) but I'm not making any claims the author is associated with this.
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#5Perhaps a controversial view on this particular forum but I find the tendency of a certain type of person* to write about everything in this overly-technical way regardless of whether it is appropriate to the subject matter to be very tiresome ("executing cached heuristics", "constrained the search space"). *I associate it with the asinine contemporary "rationalist" movement (LessWrong et al.) but I'm not making any…
I mean, I talk like this as well. It's not really intentional. My interests influence the language that I use.
Why is the rationalist movement asinine? I don't know much about it but it seems interesting.
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#6How often is a drawing really trashed and restarted? There's the saying, "Plan to throw one away," but seems like it varies in practice (for software). There are even books about patching paintings, like Master Disaster: Five Ways to Rescue Desparate Watercolors. In architecture, it's understood the people, vehicles, and landscape are not as exact as the building or structure, and books encourage reusing magazine cli…
So i can only speak from my own experience of the last 5 years of trying (and often failing!) to accurately copy or otherwise create various drawings.
Very rarely do I start completely from scratch, but usually adjust the drawing so much that maybe I should have. I wonder if I tracked the adjustments if I would find every line was redrawn in some cases.
Thing is, it is hard to see what part is 'off' until most of the other parts are right. Especially with highly symmetric drawings, where symmetries appear gradually as the whole thing comes together.
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#7Perhaps a controversial view on this particular forum but I find the tendency of a certain type of person* to write about everything in this overly-technical way regardless of whether it is appropriate to the subject matter to be very tiresome ("executing cached heuristics", "constrained the search space"). *I associate it with the asinine contemporary "rationalist" movement (LessWrong et al.) but I'm not making any…
A bit harsh, but I see what you mean. It is tempting to try and fit every description of the world into a rigorous technical straightjacket, perhaps because it feels like you have understood it better?
Maybe it is similar to how scientist get flack for writing in technical jargon instead of 'plain language'. Partly it is a necessity - to be unambiguous - however it is also partly a choice, a way to signal that you are doing Science, not just describing messing about with chemicals or whatever.
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#8Perhaps a controversial view on this particular forum but I find the tendency of a certain type of person* to write about everything in this overly-technical way regardless of whether it is appropriate to the subject matter to be very tiresome ("executing cached heuristics", "constrained the search space"). *I associate it with the asinine contemporary "rationalist" movement (LessWrong et al.) but I'm not making any…
Just reading the abstract, I have to agree with you.
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#9Also - the speed and quality improvements when having to redo homework lost to an undiscerning canine companion is also a corollary of this.
Perhaps the time it takes to 'redo' is a better measure than last mile - it's the entire effort, minus the initial solution-space exploration?
Re: Why effort scales superlinearly with the perceived quality of creative work
#10Perhaps a controversial view on this particular forum but I find the tendency of a certain type of person* to write about everything in this overly-technical way regardless of whether it is appropriate to the subject matter to be very tiresome ("executing cached heuristics", "constrained the search space"). *I associate it with the asinine contemporary "rationalist" movement (LessWrong et al.) but I'm not making any…
no, we need more of this, the opposite of this is Robin Williams destroying the poetry theory book in dead poeta society, the result was weak kids and one of them commited suicide. More technical stuff in relation to art is a good thing, but its expected that anglosaxon people have allergy to this, they think is somehow socialist or something and they need art to be unfefined etc