Jess's Lab Notebook
Lab Notebook
Evergreen Notes
"Setups" as process inefficiency
"Tools for Thought" have many different mediums
10 Ways LLMs Could Help Reading
10x Developers
A computational language is designed to help us think computationally
A pattern language for a new computing environment
A place for everything and everything in its place
A protocol is a specification describing the behavior of a software system
Accretive versus ephemeral tools
Activating the next wave of computing pioneers
Actor Model
An NFT can act as a software license
Annotation
Annotations and Markdown
Applied research
Architect the environment where one can accomplish goals merely by being in sync with one's surroundings
Being an Effective Executive
Blockchains are a decentralized computation layer
Blockchains are not just for money
Bootcamps
Bounded Contexts, Event-driven Architecture, and Communication Across Boundaries
Buddy Session Practices
Build In Order to Learn In Order to Build
Build tools around workflows, not workflows around tools
Building Systems
Cezanne’s Sketches
Changes to an interface are fundamental changes to a things existence
Characteristics of Goods
Collaboration is a spectrum from asynchronous to fully synchronous
Collective Compensation
Computational Canvas
Computational Thinking
Computers are a material
Computers are a platform for tools for thinking
Computers are like paper
Computers Can Be Better
Computers should enable robust collaborative experiences
Computers should help us think better, together
Computers should represent knowledge using models and simulations
Computing in 50 years
Conspiracy Theories and Circular Logic
Conversational Note-Taking
CRDTs
Creating the League
Creator Economy
Customer Discovery
Customer Pain Scale Ranking
DAOs
Data and Interpreters
Data-Centric Manifesto
Datalog
Decentralized business models allow for a different flow of capital
Decentralized Identity
Declarative Programming
Designing Product Experiences
Developer Priority for a Technology Website
Digital Analog Divide
Digital gardens exist only to enable the production of singular works
Digital Gardens
Discover and disseminate generalizable insights
E-Ink Displays
Education is a complex system of interrelated concerns
Education is a values-directed activity
Embodied Computing
Event Sourcing
Evergreen Note-taking
Everything Apps
Experimental Test Pilot
Explorable Explanations
Extensible Software Project
Extitutional Theory
Favor regional variations over period
Favor workflows that encourage time spent in the resulting environment
Feedback Loops
Files are the future
Fixed Position Windows for Productivity
For peer-to-peer software, "online" and "offline" are about access to specific peers and services
Framework Versus Library
Framing as perspective
Free Will vs Pre-determinism
Funding Public Goods
Future of Development Infrastructure
Future of Programming
Gall's Law
Games as Simulations
Games
Gamification of note-making
Generation as a learning technique
Growing a garden of partial thoughts
Growth Company or Product
Growth is a poor goal for economic success
Hardware Hacking
Heilmeier Catechism
Heirloom Computing
Hiring Notes
History and Future of Computing Course
How is git not a blockchain
How to Research
Human factors limit visual perception
Idealism
Incremental Note-taking
Independent researcher
Industrial Research Lab
Information Theory
Interesting inbounds as a measure of research success
Javascript as a platform
Jobs To Be Done
Knowledge Representation
Knowledge Work & Productivity
Learn a tool by observing the tool in use
Limitations on the nature of the computing material
List of mediums employed by tools for thought
List of Software Tools for Collaboration Experiences
List of software tools for thought
Live Programming Environments
Live updating notebook website
LiveProg 2021
Mapping the future of computing
Markdown Lake
Measuring Personal Learning
Mechanism design
Medium for thinking
Mediums have a grain that constrains their capabilities
Mediums
Misconception-Oriented Pedagogy
Monologue Channels
Multiplayer note-taking
New Programming Interfaces
NFTs are ecosystems
No code and full code a middle ground?
Not Quite Enough Process
Notation as a collaboration tool
Notation
Notes on an organization system
Notes on Local-first Software
Notes represent durable knowledge objects
On Belief and Truth
On Designing a System-in-Context
On GPT-3
On Practice
Open Startups
Organizations Funding Transformative Research
Organizing one’s work under the auspices of a company provides specific advantages over independent research
Outliners are a medium for thinking
Pace Layering
Pace Layers for Software
Parametric Design Tools
Passkeys
Pattern Languages
Pedagogical Patterns
Peer-to-peer, local-first apps are simpler to build than client-server apps due to a simpler architecture
Personal Search Engine
Phenomenology
Pop-up newsletters as time-bound commitments
Possibility Space
Principles of Organization for a Workspace
Product Management
Program as Code
Programs as a medium for thinking
Progress Studies
Provocations as a singular work
Provocations produce action
Quantum Computing
Queues and personal infrastructure
R-Selection versus K-Selection
Radical New Operating Systems
Rapid changes in computing interface considered harmful
Reactive Programming
Reader Modes
Realism
Realtime Collaborative Systems
Reimagining Computing as an Academic Discipline
Reinventing the Book
ReMarkable Tablet Workflow
Requirements for a Note-taking Tool
Research is an orientation that can be directed at any subject
Research is just learning that pushes past the edges of human knowledge
Research Notes
Schemas define the shape of data
Selling The Product Before You Build It
Sentence Prompt
Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS)
Signal flare is a public artifact that attracts like-minded thinkers
Slow Hunch
Smart Contract
Socratic Method
Software Engineering
Software Estimation
Software has a grain to it
Sort papers by importance and relevance
Spaced Repetition Systems
Spatial Interfaces
Spreadsheets and Databases
Spreadsheets
Standoff Markup
Standoff Properties Working Group
Sustainability and Maintaining Systems
Sustainable versus Extractive
Svelte
Systems Thinking
The DevRel Diamond
The Distributed Schema Problem
The Everything Page
The Everything Queue
The Home Page problem
The Levels of Work
The Role of Experimentation in Inventing Novel User Interfaces
The same organism at different scales is a different organism
Thinking is a spiral, not a straight line
Thinking is communicating
Tools for Thought
Transclusion
Transformer Models
Visual Code Editing
Weekly Updates enable consistent progress on research
What does a result look like in future of computing research?
What kind of thinking is native to the digital realm?
Why make notes?
Will there be more programming languages in the future or less?
Work Assessment Framework
Work in serial, not in parallel
Work Problems
Workflow Automation
Working Out Loud
You know something when you can recall and apply the knowledge in an appropriate context
Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Zettelkasten
Zoomable User Interface
About this lab notebook
Jess's Lab Notebook

Requirements for a Note-taking Tool

  • VIM mode
  • Sync to iOS + other devices. Actual mobile app! Nope to PWA.
  • Wiki-style links
  • Desktop app (not a browser) + responsive
  • Not ugly
  • Stored as Markdown files on my machine
  • Alfred or Raycast integration

Why native apps and not web apps

  • cold-start time (> 50ms to startup and be ready to type)
  • responsiveness: low typing latency, interactions feel snappier (often GPU-powered, not some crazy DOM machinations)
  • reliability: desktop apps tend to have less bugs (when they do crash, it's usually a very hard crash)
  • OS-native UI (menus, buttons, windowing, etc)
  • Menus are used sensibly (Open up Bear on Mac and check out the "View", "Format", and "Note" menu and check out the options)
  • Separate app instance for cmd-tab navigation (I do all my navigation via cmd-tab. web apps break this)
  • OS keyboard shortcuts all work, including OS-global shortcuts like "add note"
  • Integration with Alfred or Raycast that directly instrument the app (I use this every day for "go to note" functionality)
Requirements for a Note-taking Tool
Interactive graph
On this page
Requirements for a Note-taking Tool
Why native apps and not web apps
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