Working with blips: our second system
Taylor Rogalski and I have continued our work (first ...
2025-09-02 01:40:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Andy Matuschak posts
Augmenting scholarship: a proto-proposal
Thank you all for your kind notes these past months as I've supported my mother through her final stages of cancer. She passed away a few weeks ago, and I'm glad that I was able to be with her to m...
2025-08-01 03:16:17 +0000 UTC View PostTrough: a plugin-generating Obsidian plugin
A few months ago, I wrote A startling glimpse of malleable software: LLM-generated Obsidian plugins. That essay demon...
2025-07-01 01:50:20 +0000 UTC View Post"Reading group" this Friday: examining Earth Primer as exemplar of simulations for understanding
Hi, all. Some other human-computer interaction researchers are trying to create a community for people thinking about dynamic abstractions. That is, interactive and computational representations. I...
2025-06-23 03:54:16 +0000 UTC View PostPreparatory notes for a manifesto
A personal note: my mother has a rapidly advancing cancer, and I've been quite distracted these past few weeks coordinating her care. I ask your patience with slow(er than usual) responses and ...
2025-05-31 04:02:32 +0000 UTC View PostA malleable reading environment
Inspired by last month's letter, I recently wrote this grant proposal for a new project to begin late this year. I de...
2025-04-30 21:07:02 +0000 UTC View PostA startling glimpse of malleable software: LLM-generated Obsidian plugins
One of the great dreams of the personal computing revolution was that we’d all have not only our own computers, but also our own software, exquisitely tuned to our own purposes. Instead, we got t...
2025-03-31 22:10:01 +0000 UTC View PostTools for "tools for thought"
This talk gives a high-level overview of my work on tools for thought, and some of my design principles for working on such tools. It's adapted from an "overview" talk of sorts I was invited to giv...
2025-02-28 15:40:14 +0000 UTC View PostInterviewing Joe Walker about his interview research learning process
Joe Walker has a wonderful podcast doing deeply-researched interviews, mostly with people who haven't done long-form interv...
2025-02-09 19:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostDesign-in-action: book markup grid
Something a bit different this month: a look inside a piece of my design process. In this video I talk through of a recent design for looking at an overview of all my annotations on a book. I discu...
2025-02-01 07:06:30 +0000 UTC View PostHighlights from 2024
Since many of you are new here (hello! thank you!), and since Patreon's navigation is quite cumbersome, I thought I'd gather my big 2024 projects in one place. In roughly descending order of fideli...
2025-01-12 08:07:06 +0000 UTC View PostInvention, influence, and impact
A few months ago, at a conference dinner filled with academics and founders, my table-mates were gamely trying to understand my work. One asked: what am I aiming for with my output? Am I trying to ...
2025-01-01 04:51:31 +0000 UTC View Post(Audio) A primitive for enabling environments; early work on machine-generated prompts
I was traveling during publication of November's letter, without my recording equipment. Now that I'...
2024-12-08 02:07:15 +0000 UTC View PostA primitive for enabling environments; early work on machine-generated prompts
(audio version here)
I want to create a new kind of spaced repetition system...
2024-11-29 01:17:49 +0000 UTC View PostTowards scalable blip cultivation
I’ve been collaborating with my friend Taylor Rogalski on an experimental new 2024-11-01 00:28:19 +0000 UTC View Post
What can malleable software learn from Realtalk?
A 1994 interviewer asked Alan Kay what he’s found most surprising about technology in the cl...
2024-10-01 05:17:01 +0000 UTC View Post[Recording] Discussion: Dynamicland archive
(Please don't share this video publicly.)
Thank you all for a lovely discussion today! I feel that I understand a notch better after our chat.
Here are links from the chat transcript: 2024-09-16 03:17:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Discussion: new Dynamicland archive; Sunday, September 15th @ 9AM PDT
Links: Google Meet and 2024-09-11 04:36:42 +0000 UTC View Post
On sitting down to study independently
I’ve spent a lot of time these past two years talking with serious adult learners. That is, people independently studying technical subjects (e.g. physics) in support of some creative or professi...
2024-08-31 20:19:58 +0000 UTC View PostFive years of evergreen notes
Last month, I published an essay that I'd started writing five years earlier. When I began it in 2019, I knew I didn't ...
2024-08-01 00:20:15 +0000 UTC View Post[Preview] Latticework: unifying annotation and freeform text editing for augmented sensemaking
Longtime patrons may remember the research fellowship I launched at the start of 2023. I spent a yea...
2024-06-30 23:58:02 +0000 UTC View PostExorcising us of The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
Now publicly available here.
If you want to make an educational technologist’s eyes sparkle, just ...
2024-06-06 04:32:18 +0000 UTC View Post(Recording) Discussion/Q&A: "How Might We Learn?"
Thanks to all who joined!
(As always, please don't share this recording publicly.)
2024-05-20 20:50:28 +0000 UTC View PostDiscussion / Q&A for "How Might We Learn"; Sunday, May 19th @ 9AM PDT
One of the great things about publishing a big talk or paper is that you can use them to create high-context conversations. Instead of rambling at your conversation partner about your ideas, you ca...
2024-05-17 00:38:19 +0000 UTC View PostTalk: How might we learn?
(Talk starts at 4:05. Sorry, Patreon doesn't let me embed videos with a starting timestamp!)
When people talk about the most rewarding high-growth periods of their lives, two themes commonly ...
2024-05-10 03:01:16 +0000 UTC View PostA spring flood of projects
I’ve devoted the last few months’ letters to conceptual essays, so I’ll return this month to updates on my various projects. Things are happening!
“How might we learn?” 2024-05-01 05:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
What’s worth learning if we have AGI?
GPT-4 recently reached its first birthday. Yet I confess I’ve still not metabolized the changed world we live in. I keep stumbling into plans and beliefs I formed in a pre-LLM world. Rather than ...
2024-04-01 05:49:41 +0000 UTC View Post(Recording) Discussion: What is "spatial computing" good for, and what does it want to become?
Thank you all for a very interesting discussion!
Please don't share this recording publicly.
And here's the chat transcript with some links which were mentioned:
00:12:09.188,00:1...
2024-03-04 03:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostWhat does spatial computing want to become?
I spent February trying something new: a creative holiday of sorts, occasioned by the Apple Vision Pro’s release. I gave the month over to experimentation in this new medium. To free myself to pl...
2024-03-01 06:42:59 +0000 UTC View PostDiscussion: What is "spatial computing" good for, and what does it want to become?; Sunday, March 3rd @ 9AM PST
As you'll see shortly in this month's essay, I've spent the month experimenting with the Vision Pro, trying to understand the spatial computing medium and what it might want to become.
I thou...
2024-02-29 00:28:46 +0000 UTC View Post