Conversation

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@johnnulls
the value of using “blocks” rather than “documents” as your data primitive rests upon interfaces that allow their benefits to be fully exploited if you can only express connections through vertical lists and abstractions through hyperlinks, then youve gained virtually nothing
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@johnnulls
notion, roam and the like have properly figured out that discretizing docs->blocks allows for more powerful interactions, but ALL of these softwares have criminally basic interfaces, forcing you to play with your blocks in lame ways. they are all just glorified word processors
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@johnnulls
once you break up a document into blocks, you have the same dynamic of breaking up a toy into its parts (like a Lego) this unlocks novel recombinations: new ways of interacting with the same parts and combining with other toys
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@johnnulls
in order to explore all the paths of connection, you need a surface to imagine these on. for legos, this could be a table or the floor, where possibilities can be spread, where spatialization can be taken advantage of, where ideas can be tested where is the desktop for blocks?
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@johnnulls
we need ways of spreading our thought blocks across a surface, forming lists, stacks or other graphical structures, abstracting these structures to single forms (to be used @ a higher-level)... i.e an _actual_ desktop suitable for this work, not microsoft/ apple’s lame versions
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Maggie 🔜 visting SFO 🇺🇸
@Mappletons
Replying to
@Mappletons
@johnnulls
and 2 others
Would enable people to build any block they like, eg: twitter.com/johnnulls/stat And embed them into apps that follows the protocol (hypothetically Notion, Roam, etc.) Rather than waiting for platforms to build advanced blocks, allows you to access data through your own/OS blocks
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@johnnulls
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Replying to @RobertHaisfield
an incomplete list would be: - lists and z-stacks of blocks - nested blocks - transcluded blocks - table of blocks - cluster of blocks loosely, these represent block vectors, where blocks can hold content, transclude references or other blocks (ordered or unordered)
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@johnnulls
very interesting approach i like the idea of taking back data modeling from these companies, allowing them to focus on interface/interactions. in general, divorcing data from these companies and establishing protocols all can build around seems like the righteous path
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