Andy MatuschakVerified account

@andy_matuschak

Wonder, blunder, salve, solve! Technology; design; research. Inventing tools and media which help us think. Past: led R&D ; helped build iOS .

San Francisco, CA
Joined November 2007

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  1. Pinned Tweet

    Tools for thought are a beautiful idea—inventions which can “change the thought patterns of an entire civilization.” But that’s a 30 year old quote. Why are they so hard to make? and I try to answer that question and suggest paths forward:

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  2. Those backlinks provide kindling for writing the "proper" content of the node later. Seems important for the system to display the backlinks' *context:* a simple list of backlinks won’t implicitly define a node very effectively. Gotta see the context around the link.

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  3. I first noticed this watching use Roam. As he took notes on our chats, he made certain noun phrases (e.g. my name, named theories) into node links. Those nodes had no content of their own, but after a few days, they developed an implicit definition through the backlinks.

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  4. Knowledge systems which display contextual backlinks to a node open up an interesting new behavior. You can bootstrap a new node extensionally (rather than intensionally) by simply linking to it from many other nodes—even before it has any content.

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  5. Retweeted
    Oct 24
    Replying to

    A recent obsession of mine! Two recs for you: And Interestingly, the Hoover Dam was the creation of six companies that merged because none had the budget or talent to do it alone. Was literally named the Six Companies 🤓

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  6. (Obligatory plug for ’s here!)

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  7. Visiting the Hoover Dam feels to me like visiting a rift into an alternate timeline—one in which we attempt enormous, absurd, starry-eyed projects… and achieve them, under budget and years ahead of schedule! I’d love to better understand the forces which made that possible.

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  8. UI vs UX, Palm Springs edition

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  9. What a fantastic visualization of the painful dance between taste and ability in creative work. Not just for painting! (via )

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  10. Developing this piece with has helped me tentatively resolve that tension: it's a yes-and. This was a huge relief! I saw that the practices were somehow limited—but they were too predictive to write off, and I couldn't see how to subsume them.

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  11. On a personal level, that idea was the emotional core of the piece for me. I've really struggled with my relationship to design. I've felt enthralled and empowered by its remarkable practices, but also instinctively uneasy that the work I most admire seems subtly "apart" from it.

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  12. In , and I argue that the most powerful tools for thought express deep, novel insights into the underlying subject matter. It's not enough to empathize with users—the designer must be able to produce original research in the target domain.

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  13. Modern design practice demands deep engagement with users' context: interviewing, embedding, reading, empathizing. Such a powerful discipline… yet it's hard to shake the sense that the people creating profound tools for thought are doing all those things—somehow way more deeply.

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  14. …breaking down the wall between authorial exposition and computational representations…

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  15. “I wish game designers would take over the consumer software industry...”

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  16. (I’ve said it many times before but: I really wish game designers would take over the consumer software industry)

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  17. “Skins” for apps are usually just graphic, but what if you could the fundamental emotional tenor of e.g. your email client according to mood, like choosing a playlist? This game is an email app—but with focused emotional design. (h/t !)

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  18. I'm wary of phone AR in general, but this is a fascinating application: using it to "join as spectator" the VR environment of someone in the same room.

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  19. Have you ever read someone else's diary / notebook and found it thrilling? Why did it feel so striking? Did you feel closer to the person, or did it clarify the distance? (stealing+amplifying this question from !)

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  20. 🗣🎙 I had a wonderful time discussing technologies for thought on this week's EconTalk: 's even-handed analytical style has made this my favorite podcast for years, but of course he's also an experienced educator. A great combo for this topic!

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