Working with blips: our second system
Added 2025-09-02 01:40:32 +0000 UTCTaylor Rogalski and I have continued our work (first described here) on… what to call it? A new programmable attention system? A garden for glimmers of interest? Taylor's striking phrase, "a prosthesis for your will"? Well: at least the video's only eight minutes. I console myself with Kevin Kelly's advice to "work on something that no one has a word for".
This video closes the book on the second major iteration of our system. We're looking forward to sharing more about the third, when it's ripe!
Comments
Thank you for the kind words! 1. Yeah, I totally agree. 2. Funny you should mention that—more on that soon!
Andy Matuschak
2025-10-06 22:02:36 +0000 UTCi use obsidian random note feature and have logs template, every time I open a note, I leave a comment on what I think about it now. This helps me understand myself better and stays away from social media, doesn't solve all the blips. If the new app/feature could integrate with obsidian would love to use this. Thanks.
Parashuram Joshi
2025-10-03 15:50:56 +0000 UTCI love this so much. Two thoughts: 1. While building a native experience makes sense given the impedance mismatches and awkward mobile interfaces in Obsidian, I would really hope something like would still integrate well with notes. I wouldn't want high walls between blip world and "real" notes world (Obsidian)—blip activity should flow with little friction into notes world and vice versa. At minimum I'd hope for something like Readwise's one-way flow into notes apps, though being able to capture activity in notes as visible blip-connected progress also seems quite valuable. 2. While I totally respect the academic-style research spirit of your work—focussing on developing and communicating ideas rather than shipping software—more than anything else I've seen you do, this is just screaming to be taken seriously as an actual product. Please consider not just stopping at UIST-level prototypes, demo videos, and conceptual descriptions, but trying to give this a chance to be a real thing in the world. As a fellow academic researcher who has also had a few hits that escaped the lab, it's worth listening for the rare times when something wants to be more than just an idea put out into the world: it's infrequent, but can be extremely rewarding to lean into it when the right opportunity arises. I think I am far from alone in saying that I want this so badly, and would eagerly pay you real money for it.
Jonathan Ragan-Kelley
2025-09-28 19:41:24 +0000 UTC
