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LAB NOTES
LAB NOTES
LN 000
Table of Contents

These Lab Notes document my research in progress. My research area is in the future of personal computing.

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LN 040

The venerable hyperlink

LN 039

Notes on time

LN 038

Semantic zoom

LN 037

Gestural view construction

LN 036

Free and easy organizations and associations

LN 035

The Messy Desktop

LN 034

Live items & Contextual notifications

LN 033

Swappable reference views

LN 032

System injections

LN 031

Fluid workspaces

LN 030

Foldable views

LN 029

Experimenting with the item as the core primitive

LN 028

Designing systems for computer literacy and evolvability

LN 027

Personal Computing Network & Devices

LN 026

Internet Modules

LN 025

Publishing items

LN 024

Mutations & Item change logs

LN 023

Higher-level primitives

LN 022

Undo Actions

LN 021

Automations

LN 020

Item Actions

LN 019

Notifications

LN 018

Services & Item Drives

LN 017

Today & Daily summary

LN 016

Calendar views

EXPERIMENT 001

Cross-reference Navigation in Obsidian

LN 015

Cross-references & References cloud

LN 014

The Graph OS

LN 013

Why is our thinking on computers so restrained?

LN 012

References box & Topics

LN 011

General purpose personal computing software

LN 010

User-created application and system views

LN 009

User-created item views

LN 008

Unified views

LN 007

Atomized apps

LN 006

Swappable views

LN 005

Associated items

LN 004

Browsing contexts & recent paths

LN 003

Universal reference containers

LN 002

Universal data portability

LN 001

Composing application interfaces

LN 000

The Lab Notes

The Lab Notes

These Lab Notes document the progress, experiments, and concepts in my research, which focuses on the future of personal computing. This work is primarily shaped by exploring the “operating system of the future,” and with those concepts, creating an experimental new environment for personal computing.

The most recent notes are listed on the left starting at the top. As a sort of table of contents, here is a living guide to diving in.

If you’re reading for the first time, you can start with LN 002: Universal data portability and progress sequentially, or a good single one to start with is LN 014: The Graph OS. If you want to jump into the more recent stuff, start with LN 037: Gestural view construction.

Having fun with items

Having fun with item views

Having fun with item graphs

Having fun with item services

Having fun with itemized networks & devices

Having fun with itemized systems

Having fun with itemized interfaces

Having fun with space & time

New models for computational thinking

New models for software development

Experiments

Context

It is the goal of these Lab Notes to explore how personal computing might be improved in order to expand human capacity to think, create, collaborate, and do.

Much of what we explore will revolve around new and renewed ideas for the user environment of the operating system of the future. We will also explore how software is built, the business of software development, and a few other related topics.

These Lab Notes will be published regularly. In general, they will be short, seeking to quickly but meaningfully illustrate a discrete topic, insight, or experiment that has come out of my research. I hope to as often as possible include demos, live or in video, that bring the topic to life on your screen.

Some of the Lab Notes will build on each other, and some will present new starting points for exploring possible answers to our key questions.

A primary goal of these Lab Notes is to open up meaningful discussion on the topic areas being covered. If you think of something interesting, or see how work relates to something else you found curious, please reach out.

For more, read the article on how I approach my core work, which concludes with a discussion on how these Lab Notes contribute to that work.

In sum, I believe that there exists a better way forward for personal computing. I do not purport to have all the answers, but I am coming at this equipped with some intriguing starting points, and motivated by a lifelong obsession with what potential personal computing presents to the future of our society.


One long-form article has resulted from these Lab Notes so far:

The Potential Merits of an Itemized OS is an article that illustrates many of the concepts explored in the earlier Lab Notes, brought together into one cohesive concept.

Something spark a thought? Email me, or come chat on Mastodon or on Twitter.


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