May office hours (including one tomorrow—Fri, May 13)
Added 2022-05-12 22:36:06 +0000 UTCAnnouncing office hours for May! Note that the first one is tomorrow, this Friday (Google Calendar link; iCal URL):
Happy to discuss the mnemonic medium redesign tomorrow if it's of interest and if others' projects don't fill our time.
Recapitulating some information about the rough structure:
- At least for now, there are no reservations. Just show up; we'll form a queue.
- In the fashion of academic office hours, eavesdropping is encouraged. You may have to wait a while to ask your question, but listening in on others' questions may turn out to be more valuable than whatever motivated you to attend, anyway. Likewise, feel free to chime in if you have thoughts on a question someone else brings—just be graceful in sharing airtime.
- These conversations aren't 1:1, but we'll have better discussions if we feel safe to speak. The Chatham House Rule is in effect: paraphrasing is okay, but don't identify anyone. And of course, we'll treat each other with generosity and nobility; I'll moderate problems. But! The chat transcript will be published as a comment on this post after the office hours, so that URLs which people share are more easily accessible. Identities in the chat transcript will be public.
- Unless few people show up, I'll probably cut off any one line of discussion at a maximum of about ten minutes. If it feels we've gotten the most out of a topic after just a few minutes, I may switch us up sooner. Take that as a sign of success, rather than a critical judgment!
- Rough work and ill-specified questions are very welcome. Several people have told me that they're waiting to show me design work until it's more polished. Honestly: that's silly!
Comments
Today's chat transcript: Ruben Artus2:01 PM Hey Andy & Silka! :) Ruben Artus2:03 PM Maybe the books Linchpin and Tribes by Seth Godin could be interesting to you right now, Silka Silka Sietsma2:04 PM Hi Ruben and everyone Ruben Artus2:18 PM Maybe interesting to some: recently we're incorporating ideas from Shape-Up (which is much influenced by Christopher Alexander's work) into our small team – it gives a helpful structure that separates research, spec, and building – at several levels of abstraction. https://basecamp.com/shapeup You2:34 PM Democratizing Innovation by Eric von Hippel Ruben Artus2:35 PM Andy, I would love to hear you talk a bit about your structure of working as a researcher + designer + engineer: keeping the balance between following spontaneous rabbit holes (which often lead to great insight or new questions) and finishing concrete projects (like the recent Orbit demo/talk). Silka Sietsma2:36 PM the Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki Silka Sietsma2:39 PM Can you give us an example list? Parker Henderson2:41 PM Would love to see that list of interaction design prompts! Jack Walton2:42 PM I've arrived at a similar menu-esque approach; that was very validating! Jack Walton2:47 PM Story - Robert Mckee Ryan Robinson2:52 PM Question (and sorry, can’t talk right now because I have numerous young kids around Mistake. Haha You2:52 PM Feel free to type Ryan! Ryan Robinson2:54 PM Thanks. I’ll try to get it in. I’m also dadding right now. ☺️ Ruben Artus2:56 PM I’m currently re-reading Notes on the Synthesis of Form and like this quote very much: „[…] physical clarity cannot be achieved in a form until there is first some programmatic clarity in the designer's mind and actions; and that for this to be possible, in turn, the designer must first trace his design problem to its earliest functional origins and be able to find some sort of pattern in them.“ You2:56 PM ^^ yes absolutely Ruben Artus2:57 PM Oh the time, will Google kick us out in 3 minutes? Jack Walton2:59 PM "thread pulling" I can add to my menu Boris Smus2:59 PM Got a link? Parker Henderson2:59 PM i've been meaning to, but my quest was dead when I tried 😂 You2:59 PM https://substack.soft.space/p/softspace-ar-prototype02 Ryan Robinson2:59 PM I know this isn’t going great with the theme. So, we don’t have to engage the question at all. How do you generally get from reading/thinking/writing notes and writing prompts for your SRS? I have struggled with when I understand something enough through developing my mental representation of the discourse to begin writing prompts. But, do I wait three chapters? Also, do I write them while reading? I know there aren’t right answers here. Just interested in your thoughts. No problem! You3:01 PM https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/#iterative-prompts wjk-ehpf-miw
Andy Matuschak
2022-05-31 22:02:00 +0000 UTCChat transcript from May 13th office hours: Yiliu Shen-Burke9:35 AM Q Ozzie Kirkby9:35 AM q Ethan Plante9:35 AM Q Dhiraj T9:36 AM Q Ethan Plante9:39 AM Q Nicki Vance9:40 AM Hi! Thanks, I'm just eavesdropping :) You9:43 AM For people who want to check out Yiliu's project: https://twitter.com/softspaceninja/status/1524008563965894656?s=20&t=v_MWe_3loUiMVSxa2Q2-BQ Robert Cobb9:51 AM Thinking about this from an authoring / educator perspective, those are the prompts that seem most interesting to revise / fix / review with students You9:51 AM Yeah! Really interesting opportunities for "author analytics" Robert Cobb9:54 AM In quantum country, the mnemonic medium was explicitly forward in the prose! That seemed like a plus for getting unfamiliar readers to engage with the review. I can't recall if the meaningness essay also put the medium and review at the forward in the essay content itself the downbeat / review moment hinting seems great Yiliu Shen-Burke9:57 AM ❤️👋🏼 Robert Cobb9:59 AM This? https://andymatuschak.org/books/ Robert Cobb10:00 AM docs >>>> notion Robert Cobb10:03 AM the no-new-primitives solve might be "write a prompt that connects the general to the specific" Ben Wheeler10:07 AM Queue! Rik de Kort10:10 AM to add to the colour discussion: I'm colourblind, would much prefer shapes Robert Cobb10:14 AM the grouping, locality, and exploration part of that design seems pretty hard, but maybe I'm making it harder than it needs to be in my mind Dhiraj T10:15 AM what is the obsidian thing that was mentioned? Robert Cobb10:15 AM https://obsidian.md/ - "Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files." Ethan Plante10:16 AM https://github.com/Pseudonium/Obsidian_to_Anki Ben Wheeler10:17 AM I could talk about how i use evernote with programming knowledge Robert Cobb10:17 AM > the obsidian thing 🙈 interpreted this question as about obsidian in general, not Andy's specific obsidian-related project Ethan Plante10:19 AM Ahh Daniel Steinbock10:19 AM Can I get a link to the Meaningness essay demo? Ethan Plante10:20 AM Obsidian has some good stuff, but it isn’t the best text editor, Would someone repeat the question? I think I missed it. Robert Cobb10:20 AM https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3aPTeVY2CVJqs61k26bHCvTZnniAK3hMEk3B?stackedNotes=z6NAUU151tRAwC9JCEbi5aW7PVU2BFiwmsFWt I think is the right two-note stack for the context on "the obsidian thing", but I could be wrong You10:21 AM Daniel: https://metarationality.com/maps-and-territory Ben Wheeler10:21 AM Ethan, Dhiraj's question (IIRC) was, how do people use evergreen notes in contexts besides ultimately serving writing as an output? Ethan Plante10:22 AM Ahh. Thanks, Ben! You10:25 AM https://cognitivemedium.com/srs-mathematics https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Unusual_applications_of_spaced_repetition_memory_systems You10:27 AM https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/#prompting-salience tqp-cvbe-nqk
Andy Matuschak
2022-05-13 17:31:07 +0000 UTC
