Posted by rpastuszak 6/30/2025
After 6 years and 2 million words of daily writing I feel like I've learned enough to make Ensō simpler and more accessible.
Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38025073
Brain dumping also works the same way. You write whatever you have in your mind, without even correcting spelling errors. It really brings out things you don't know they are there and bothering you or taking space.
You should at least try once. Takes an hour or so.
I also use a similar method for drafting my blog posts if I have the idea, but can't bring out the rest of the text.
to me the ability to manipulate thought fragments is the killer feature of writing. If I want to get stuff out without needing to see it immediately, i just record my voice talking
I argue that brain mechanisms are different for speaking, typing and writing.
Speaking with intent is very powerful, indeed because hearing what you say is very different than an inner dialogue, but from my experience writing and typing has a greater power for dislodging what's in the nooks and crannies of your mind.
I can speak my mind, but that path is generally more filtered and shallower than sitting and writing what I have in my mind. Typing is a bit more inferior, but comparable.
The trick in writing/typing is it allows "blurts". You dump the initial 10-20 items at a quick pace. Then you start to slow down. This is where magic happens, because while writing/typing you experience small "a-ha" moments and continue writing things triggered by the initial "burst". This small blurts which drive the rest for an hour or so, and you feel tired but relaxed, because now you have a blueprint of what "keeps you up" is in front of you.
This is not equally possible with talking + auto-transcribing, because brain needs a different pace for that dumping process to work.
Are you suggesting that this experience of yours applies to everyone or that it applies to every context (alone vs not alone)?
Nothing stops you from voice record 10-20 items and stopping or pausing the recording. The idea that talking plus transcribing does not let you do what you do when typing seems odd and likely not based on actual facts. Stephen Hawkings did not seem to struggle to do highly intellectual work without typing
I'm VERY conservative with adding new UI elements, especially those introducing new possible sources of distractions, so I might hide it behind a bunch of menus. That said, I've spent ages yak shaving / working on those problems already :)
When I’m at home, I do most of my writing now with voice input. Would somebody please invent a sound cancellation device that will enable me to talk to my devices in coffee shops and on public transportation without being heard by others?
I think it's funny that it's very similar to ensō in many ways, but also the complete opposite: ensō is calm, mindful, soothing. MDWa is hectic, terrifying, sadistic. Funny how a tiny difference produces products that look almost the same, and feel completely different.
huge props to rafal for creating ensō, personally really love it
So glad to come across it again!
At least my https://meat-gpt.sonnet.io gets indexed well, including 100s of AI websites who webscraped it and hallucinated product descriptions.
0: https://storyempire.com/2025/04/28/nanowrimo-closing-what-we...
I made something similar inspired by this few times in the past.
I think this is already quite perfect, ambient music I can provide myself.
While I did thought of new features, they are really not needed. I especially like coffee shop mode. I often feel self conscious about things I am writing, so hiding text is fantastic.
Apparently it’s an app. I suppose that blog post is only for people who already know what the app is?