• I don’t think Orbit existed when we started working on Thought Saver (or if it did, we didn’t know about it). When Quantum Country came out I wasn’t aware (not sure if anyone was aware?) at the time that it was part of a larger project (maybe it wasn’t yet at that point?)
• Thought Saver has a different focus than Orbit (e.g., Thought Saver is not focussed on embedded essays—it just seems that way because the LessWrong team asked if we could add that feature since they wanted to try embedded flashcard quizzes). Thought Saver is more fundamentally focussed on being a tool for accelerating your own learning.
• Also, as far as I’m aware Orbit can’t be used in a self-serve fashion right now (?)
• I’ll add that Andy is awesome, I deeply respect his work, and I consider him the world expert on the topic of writing essays with memory elements (and on other topics related to spaced repetition as well). I’m excited to see what he does with Orbit!
Thanks, Spencer—I’m excited to see what you learn from this. :)
FWIW, Orbit can indeed be used self-serve, but its OEmbed support (for embedding into user-generated content editors like on here, Medium, GitHub, etc) is not yet available; you must be able to embed HTML blocks. I’ve not yet advertised this very broadly because I’ve been looking to cultivate closer relationships with authors in contexts where the medium might be especially useful. Like many commenters here, I fear the existing embedding interaction is probably a net negative in many contexts.
I’m curious why you decided to make an entirely new platform (Thought Saver) rather than using Andy’s Orbit platform.
A few thoughts on this:
• I don’t think Orbit existed when we started working on Thought Saver (or if it did, we didn’t know about it). When Quantum Country came out I wasn’t aware (not sure if anyone was aware?) at the time that it was part of a larger project (maybe it wasn’t yet at that point?)
• Thought Saver has a different focus than Orbit (e.g., Thought Saver is not focussed on embedded essays—it just seems that way because the LessWrong team asked if we could add that feature since they wanted to try embedded flashcard quizzes). Thought Saver is more fundamentally focussed on being a tool for accelerating your own learning.
• Also, as far as I’m aware Orbit can’t be used in a self-serve fashion right now (?)
• I’ll add that Andy is awesome, I deeply respect his work, and I consider him the world expert on the topic of writing essays with memory elements (and on other topics related to spaced repetition as well). I’m excited to see what he does with Orbit!
Thanks, Spencer—I’m excited to see what you learn from this. :)
FWIW, Orbit can indeed be used self-serve, but its OEmbed support (for embedding into user-generated content editors like on here, Medium, GitHub, etc) is not yet available; you must be able to embed HTML blocks. I’ve not yet advertised this very broadly because I’ve been looking to cultivate closer relationships with authors in contexts where the medium might be especially useful. Like many commenters here, I fear the existing embedding interaction is probably a net negative in many contexts.