The Price of Money, William Greider, in the New Yorker.

Eighteen thousand seven hundred words, and the right rail has already broken it into a hundred and sixty-one moments.

The rail reads top to bottom: how far through you are, the names the piece keeps returning to, the sections themselves, and a density skyline underneath.

That count scales with the piece, rather than being a score out of ten.

A short news article gets a short list; eighteen thousand words of reporting gets a hundred and sixty-one.

Each section carries a label and a type.

Quote is the only tinted chip, so the list still reads as a list.

A different kind of source gets its own vocabulary.

A paper reads as Definition, Method, Result, Figure, Equation.

Each item keeps to one set of labels, so the rail always means the same thing.

Under the sections, a skyline.

One bar per section, tallest where the piece is densest, named on a five word ladder: Sparse, Light, Moderate, Rich, Dense.

The rail likes a bit of room, about a thousand pixels of window.

Narrow it and the rail steps aside; widen it and it comes straight back.

A hundred and sixty-one moments, and now you can see the shape of the thing before you start.