Via Slashdot: Paul Graham, computer programmer, author, and inventor of the Yahoo! Store, has written an essay on the current state of the essay. While I don't entirely agree with all of his points, there are some interesting comments at the end about the influence of technology on writing, and some of the comments in the Slashdot thread are potentially provocative as well (if you're willing to brave the Slashdot signal-to-noise ratio). (Title edited for correctness.)