A casual tools-for-thought / weird-interfaces / future-of-personal-computing unconference to kick off the new year!
When: Sunday, Jan 29; 9AM-12PM PST [2023-01-20 18:47:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Reflecting on my work with the mnemonic medium, I notice that I’m making good progress on questions of breadth and scale, but not nearly enough along the much more important axes of depth and impact. That’s not for lack of trying—my attempts to explore the latter keep fizzling. But I think ...
2022-12-27 21:55:14 +0000 UTC View Posttl;dr: join me on Dec 24 at 9AM PST to discuss Bret's latest...
2022-12-15 21:50:48 +0000 UTC View PostA consistent challenge in my development as a researcher has been: how to cultivate deep, stable concentration in the face of complex, ill-structured creative problems?
In roles oriented around operation and execution, I benefited enormously from standard “productivity” advice. Task man...
2022-11-30 21:37:04 +0000 UTC View PostI'm trying something new! Work with me on a research project of mutual interest; get six months of funding and mentorship.
Details here (apply by Nov 25): https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Research_fellowship
If you know so...
2022-11-17 22:01:26 +0000 UTC View PostJoin me and author Joshua Horowitz on Oct 29 from 9-10AM PDT to discuss Engraft, a new system for composable live programming from <...
2022-10-21 20:49:43 +0000 UTC View PostTrying office hours again this month (Google Calendar link; 2022-10-18 20:31:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Over the past few weeks, I’ve run twenty live observation sessions for my most recent mnemonic medium prototype, and I’ve read through a stack of diaries from asynchronous testers. I’d like to sha...
2022-10-14 19:00:39 +0000 UTC View PostLast month’s mnemonic medium design is now a live prototype. After a dozen live observation sessions with test readers, I’ve already learned a great deal—but I need more sessions and more distance before I can wr...
2022-09-29 02:09:52 +0000 UTC View PostSummary: Join me on Sep 24 from 10-11AM PDT to discuss Webstrates, a research project with striking ideas for making software much more mall...
2022-09-21 01:23:04 +0000 UTC View Post
In this talk, I present a new round of primitives for the mnemonic medium, focused on the issues and opportunities I distilled out of the last round of prototyping (see that talk here).
For those who aren't inter...
2022-08-26 20:34:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Another event experiment!
This Sunday, I'll be hosting a casual unconference for patrons, 11AM-12:30PM PDT in Gather, a spatial video chat platform. To join, 2022-08-16 01:49:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Relatively soon—maybe in our lifetimes, maybe next century—we’ll have full duplex input and output links from our brains to computers. We’ll have synthetic telepathy. We may find ourselves augmented with an effectively unlimited working memory. What will “collective intelligence” mean...
2022-07-31 21:42:51 +0000 UTC View Post[Edit: oof, I accidentally recorded with no sound! Apologies! Thankfully, all who sent me questions came live, at least. We'll try something different next month…]
Hello, all! This Friday (July 22) at 2PM PDT, I'll be hosting a live Q&A session. [2022-07-18 21:12:34 +0000 UTC View Post
I designed something new, and I’ve spent much of the past few weeks watching people use it. Those sessions have been generative and energizing. They always are. There’s something magical ...
2022-06-30 20:28:42 +0000 UTC View PostMaking the demo/talk on the new mnemonic medium last month really helped me refine my ideas. The next step of course was to see how people actually behave. I turned the smoke-and-mirrors prot...
2022-06-24 18:24:13 +0000 UTC View PostAnnouncing office hours for June! Note that the first one is this Friday (Google Calendar link; 2022-06-15 21:17:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Announcing office hours for May! Note that the first one is tomorrow, this Friday (Google Calendar link;
Last year, I worked with authors to test the mnemonic medium (i.e. Orbit) in a bunch of contexts beyond Quantum Country. And… it didn't work nearly as well! Since late last year I've been working on rede...
2022-05-12 20:23:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi, all! First, a timely reminder that the second April office hours is tomorrow (Google Calendar link; 2022-04-29 04:55:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Just sending out this reminder of office hours for April; note that the first one is this Thursday (Google Calendar link;
The best scientists, entrepreneurs, and engineers I know pour themselves into their work. You couldn’t capture their working hours on a timecard. Their creative gears turn restlessly, and insights produced in the shower or on walking conversations are no less valuable than those produced at the...
2022-04-01 05:24:22 +0000 UTC View PostJust sending out this reminder of office hours for March; note that the first one is tomorrow (Google Calendar link; 2022-03-10 03:22:22 +0000 UTC View Post
Now equipped with several years of data and the results of several controlled experiments, I’ve spent the last few months making sense of what’s happening on Quantum Country. I’d like to discuss some of what I’ve found along the way, and some of what still confuses me.
Please no...
2022-03-01 06:08:27 +0000 UTC View PostContinuing the office hours experiment in February and March (Google Calendar link; 2022-02-08 19:46:03 +0000 UTC View Post
URL for the "official" public version of this post: https://andymatuschak.org/2021
The boundary of a year is arbitrary, sure. But that doesn’t stop rituals from yielding wisdom a...
2022-01-26 18:25:35 +0000 UTC View PostHappy new year, all! The office hour experiments last month were intriguing enough that I'd like to experiment with twice-monthly office hours, at least for a few months. I'll alternate times to try to cover both hemispheres.
This month's times, if you'd like to join (2022-01-07 21:47:17 +0000 UTC View Post
“It is the destiny of computers to become interactive intellectual amplifiers for all people pervasively networked worldwide.
— J.C.R. Licklider
If you wan...
2022-01-01 04:41:57 +0000 UTC View PostI hope you all are having a peaceful and bright holiday season. This isn't one of my usual "letters from the lab"—more a time-sensitive invitation.
tl;dr: I'm holding "office hours" next Monday and Wednesday (12/27 and 12/29) from 2-3PM PST. Come by and ask questions, pose problems, or of...
2021-12-24 16:59:46 +0000 UTC View PostSince 2019, I’ve been running a series of randomized controlled experiments on Quantum Country readers. The main reason I haven’t published these is that I don’t understand what’s going on. Readers are forgetting very slowly...
2021-12-01 06:35:19 +0000 UTC View Post