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Andy Matuschak's Notes
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- edfletcher_t137 6y ago>If you had to set one metric to use as a leading indicator for yourself as a knowledge worker, the best I know might be the number of Evergreen notes written per day. Oy.
- branweb 6y agowhat's the problem with it? Isn't a good metric going to be numeric, kinda of necessity?...also since these are his personal notes, shouldn't we assume the "you" there means himself? So who's he keeping outside the gate?
- meheleventyone 6y agoI guess the biggest criticism is it promotes quantity over quality. Similar to counting lines of code or pages of a book written. Although I think it’s safe to assume in this case there is some implicit notion of minimum quality to consider a note “written”.
- branweb 6y agoah i see that and yeah after reviewing the concept of evergreen notes, I think your assumption is a safe one ...though the original post (pre-edit) was something like "oy using volume of notes written as a gatekeeper for knowledge work", which seems like a slightly different criticism of the statement.
- meheleventyone 6y agoI didn’t see the pre-edit version so did wonder where the gate keeping bit came from. That sort of uncharitable take is why I’d never put my notes online. I’d find it extremely stressful.
- 082349872349872 6y agoKnowledge workers are refrigerators: meals + information ⟶ knowledge + heat A traditional measure of a knowledge worker is in papers/year. To find a higher-frequency leading indicator, notes/day seems apropos. (The heat above is generated at O(100W). Unfortunately that doesn't correlate well with knowledge produced, or we could just use it as a measure. Would an intermediate measure be drafts/week?) Highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6rVHr6OwjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6rVHr6OwjI
- krmboya 6y agoDoes number of lines of code deleted also count?
- branweb 6y agoWas expecting to bypass this pretty quickly, but this is great! Lots of interesting ideas about how to gain and use knowledge effectively. Spaced repetition for habit formation, non-linear reading as the norm, needing a writing surface to think...good stuff.
- joaorico 6y agoRight now, Andy is perhaps the most sophisticated thinker in this space sharing his insights and prototypes (meta-knowledge work, backlinked evergreen notes, spaced repetition, new UX/UI for these systems, etc). Here's some additional pointers: - Andy livestreamed a demo of him on a typical work session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGcs4tyey18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGcs4tyey18 - this Patreon post explains in greater lenght his OS-level spaced repetition approach: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bringing-ideas-36925173 https://www.patreon.com/posts/bringing-ideas-36925173 - Andy is working on a prototype of that system, called Orbit, which might be available soon: https://twitter.com/withorbit https://twitter.com/withorbit - in regards to his specific writing/thinking system, here's a couple more clarifications: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmmF62XgaMXm https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmm... https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z6f6xgGG4NKjkA5NA1kDd46whJh2Gt5rAmfX https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z6f6xgGG4NKjkA5NA1kDd46whJh2... - Obsidian has a plug-in which replicates the sliding panes of Andy's notes: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/andy-matuschak-mode-v2-7-updated-for-0-7-new-panes/170 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/andy-matuschak-mode-v2-7-updated... I think the space of graph/backlinked personal notes/knowledge systems is taking off [1], with many solutions free and open-source. (Of that list, many have spaced-repetition plug-ins not referenced there.) It will be interesting to how the field matures in a couple of years. [1] https://www.notion.so/db13644f08144495ad9877f217a161a1?v=ff6777802811416ba08dc114e0b11837 https://www.notion.so/db13644f08144495ad9877f217a161a1?v=ff6...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- awake 6y agoYou seem to know a lot about Andy. Do you know which tools he uses to write his notes and keep track of back links?
- bschne 6y agoIf you check out the livestream on youtube, you'll see that he does the writing in Bear (Mac/iOS only app). Presumably there's some custom code to export everything and build the HTML with backlinks, but as mentioned in the link posted here, this code is not public anywhere.
- gitgud 6y ago> "PS: Many people ask, so I’ll just note here: no, I haven’t made this system available for others to use. It’s still an early research environment, and Premature scaling can stunt system iteration." Damn, looks like an interesting way to browse knowledge... I want it!
- theptip 6y agoHave you tried Obsodian or Roam? The site looks quite a lot like clicking through a Roam graph to me.
- DanSmooth 6y agoFeels like a horizontally aligned version of Tiddlywiki: https://tiddlywiki.com/ https://tiddlywiki.com/
- telotortium 6y agohttps://notes.azlen.me/g3tibyfv/ https://notes.azlen.me/g3tibyfv/ seems to be inspired by Andy Matuschak's notes. They have a Github that might implement this, though there isn't an obvious package to implement this: https://github.com/azlen/azlen.me https://github.com/azlen/azlen.me
- 082349872349872 6y ago> Knowledge work rarely involves deliberate practice Hacking is playful practice.
- xuki 6y agoI watched Andy's presentation at one WWDC (probably 2010) and left thinking "This fella is really something".
- twright 6y agoIn that same vein, I regularly think about a lightning talk on gestures he gave at React Conf 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYPqb83C7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYPqb83C7k
- xuki 6y agoThanks for the link. I can't find the link to the WWDC presentation, but it was about the introduction of the same multi touch system he talked about in the talk you mentioned.
- waffletower 6y agoAndy's functional programming evangelism back in 2015 helped lead me swiftly down a path away from being a professional Apple ecosystem developer. I am now a professional Clojurist. Thank you very much Andy.
- why_only_15 6y agoSome of the notes seem to be restricted? e.g. i get an error: unauthorized when clicking the link "Relationship between evergreen note-writing and Zettelkasten" on this note: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z2QvtE9w5zs49x7WUeG8Ut1vywHDLiG2Wkm9p https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z2QvtE9w5zs49x7WUeG8Ut1vywHD...
- andymatuschak 6y agoAh, sorry; some of them are indeed restricted, but that was just a broken link. Here's a correct link for that note: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmmF62XgaMXm https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmm...
- siscia 6y agoSpeaking of notes, is there some simple knowledge base system for someone that wants to keep its note in a web accessible place?
- nikivi 6y agoI use GitBook. It just takes in markdown files and renders it nicely on the web. Scales well with number of notes too. I have over 30,000 lines of markdown thus far: https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge
- siscia 6y agoYeah I am mostly looking for some place a little more private, so I can store ssh passwords or other stuff that I don't necessarily want google to index...
- nikivi 6y agoI do that with this setup too. Just put private things in `private` folder that is git ignored.
- jszymborski 6y agoYou might not want to store secrets in anything but a secret store/password manager/application explicitly built for storing secrets. You can also run DokuWiki locally for notes you wish to keep private, it's rather easy to do.
- nicky0 6y agoInteresting insight into a mind that works absolutely nothing like mine.
- rpmuller 6y agoAndy and Michael Nielsen put together a set of very nice, flashcard-enhanced introductory lessons for quantum information sciences at https://quantum.country/ https://quantum.country/ where they explore some of the mnemonic techniques that Andy talks about in his notes.
- warunsl 6y agoKrystal plugin for TiddlyWiki mimics the sliding panes of notes on Andy's website. I have been using it for a while and it's been neat. https://crazko.github.io/krystal/ https://crazko.github.io/krystal/
- harry-s 6y agocool ux!
- gandalfgeek 6y agoThorough indictment of productivity porn: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zUMFE66dxeweppDvgbNAb5hukXzXQu8ErVNv https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zUMFE66dxeweppDvgbNAb5hukXzX... "People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use Many bloggers and “life-hackers” have made a full-time job of suggesting how you should organize your journal, or how you should most effectively Write about what you read. We should take this advice seriously insofar as those practices have helped the authors achieve meaningful creative work: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking” But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity."
- sidpatil 6y agohttps://xkcd.com/874/ https://xkcd.com/874/
- owenshen24 6y agoI wrote about something similar for self-help, more broadly here about how good self help is self-defeating: https://mlu.red/55070266310.html https://mlu.red/55070266310.html
- praptak 6y agoProductivity porn has its uses. Getting to write notes is hard, or at least not very gratifying. Getting the perfect pen and notebook makes note taking more appealing, which is good.
- criddell 6y agoBut there's always a better pen and notebook out there. At some point you have to do the work.
- praptak 6y agoYes, obviously. If you limit PP to rewarding yourself, short-term, for starting unappealing work, then you should be fine. Otherwise it's just a huge resource sink. I settled on a $1.20 pen model which I really like, a generic notebook and have kept the resolution not to even look at any more stuff (okay, I read about Zettelkasten but resisted the temptation to try it). This sort of works for me. I will keep quiet on how much time I had spent researching various productivity-related crap :)
- a1pulley 6y agoI was in Andy's dorm (house) at Caltech. When I matriculated, I chose begrudgingly to study a "real" science--physics--instead of what I actually liked--computer science. It was in no small part thanks to Andy's contagious and unabashed excitement for CS that I eventually switched over and became a happy software engineer.
- artemisyna 6y agoHmmmm... you didn’t happen to start the 2-seater car physics major trend, did you?
- xvedejas 6y agoGreat to have such upperclassmen as role models as a student. Doesn't surprise me that it would have a big effect on what majors students choose. But sometimes we wonder if too many people take cs at caltech these days just because it is trendy or just easier? Guess I really Don't know if that's a "problem" Either, I am happy it worked out for you.
- qwhelan 6y agoAs yet another housemate of Andy's at Caltech, it is perhaps worth mentioning that he was also involved in updating Caltech's CS curriculum prior to it becoming as popular as it is today. Hard to say how much of the trend is just what happened everywhere, but CS1 being in Python rather than Scheme probably helped a bit.
- grugagag 6y agoWas swapping Scheme for Python a good thing though? Scheme is a very good way to understand the concepts of CS in a more fundamental way. Python can be learned independently anyway through SICP.
- qwhelan 6y agoIIRC, CS1 was a mandatory class for other majors (like MechE) and a course in Scheme was basically hazing from their perspective. I forget if Scheme was moved to a later course or made optional.