tommy joseph

i build tools for thinking and learning! recently: a notes app a math AI tutor and a thinking canvas

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

@stevekrouse hello great list - i would share about half of these in my bibliography of the same length

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

@majamediaco i am a new account, but cannot claim hidden gem status yet. working on it :)

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

@andy_matuschak would appreciate your thoughts on this + the broader feed idea if you have the chance

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

i like the idea of combining feeds with spaced repetition. making it natural for you to return to the blogs / essays / twitter threads / text snippets that you want to internalize. would fit nicely into this idea:

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

idea: a personalized feed for interesting written content from across internet time. twitter and substack feeds are great public townsquares but they emphasize recency. as a separate part of my media diet, i want more blog posts and twitter threads from years ago. i could manually rabbit hole but feeds have a gravity and i fall in - so why not harness that?

the content we consume is training data for our minds. we should take it seriously. ten years ago, there wasn't rich discourse on AI policy but there was quality writing on starting a business, relationships, personal storytelling, morality, design, education, gov, book reviews, etc. right now, this writing takes a lot of effort to find. and when you specify the topics, the search gets even harder. google doesn't bring it up. you have to manually navigate through the blogs/people you like and the blogs/people they link to - or rely on others to surface it in existing feeds.

the rule for any feed is that it's got to be interesting at a glance. the rule for this feed is the content must be nutritious. to encourage this combo, you should have control over the content and style of the feed. for example, in natural language you could specify the topic "those wise life rule listicles like sasha chapin's 50 things i know" and the presentation "2-3 of the rules directly quoted". if you have context for the AI, you could even say "2-3 of the rules directly quoted and tied into my life events".

so why hasn't this been done? there is RSS and a neat app called "feeeed" by @nateparrott. and occassionally i see people on twitter use claude code to aggregate and transform their feeds into a new feed. but i suspect the real value here is a great semantic search over the blogosphere/twitter. if you index it and know the people and content a person likes, maybe you can find nearby content that's pretty good.

p.s. i'm considering working on this and sending this off to see if it resonates with people

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

credit to @phokarlsson for the phrasing "training data for our minds"

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

idea: a personalized feed for interesting written content from across internet time. twitter and substack feeds are great public townsquares but they emphasize recency. as a separate part of my media diet, i want more blog posts and twitter threads from years ago. i could manually rabbit hole but feeds have a gravity and i fall in - so why not harness that?

the content we consume is training data for our minds. we should take it seriously. ten years ago, there wasn't rich discourse on AI policy but there was quality writing on starting a business, relationships, personal storytelling, morality, design, education, gov, book reviews, etc. right now, this writing takes a lot of effort to find. and when you specify the topics, the search gets even harder. google doesn't bring it up. you have to manually navigate through the blogs/people you like and the blogs/people they link to - or rely on others to surface it in existing feeds.

the rule for any feed is that it's got to be interesting at a glance. the rule for this feed is the content must be nutritious. to encourage this combo, you should have control over the content and style of the feed. for example, in natural language you could specify the topic "those wise life rule listicles like sasha chapin's 50 things i know" and the presentation "2-3 of the rules directly quoted". if you have context for the AI, you could even say "2-3 of the rules directly quoted and tied into my life events".

so why hasn't this been done? there is RSS and a neat app called "feeeed" by @nateparrott. and occassionally i see people on twitter use claude code to aggregate and transform their feeds into a new feed. but i suspect the real value here is a great semantic search over the blogosphere/twitter. if you index it and know the people and content a person likes, maybe you can find nearby content that's pretty good.

p.s. i'm considering working on this and sending this off to see if it resonates with people

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

@Amina_io bye amina! classy exit

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

i will return to working on this app soon!

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

feels great to wake up to user appreciation emails. this is why i play the game

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

ignore that agricultural backpack sprayers already exist

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

one of my friends waters all the plants in a big house. he said it's a pain going back and forth to get more water. i saw a business opportunity: a camelbak-like backpack that holds 2-5 gallons of water and lets you hand dispense via tube

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

@majamediaco nathan is my spirit animal

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

going to take this literally: nathan for you, kurosawa, memex trails, malleable software, apple's impute, seymour papert, aaron swartz, old trees

[maja 🔭🍒 @majamediaco]

basically this magical idea in action. also tweeting = micro blog post

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

the system: architects design the building, the structural engineer designs the structure, the building department approves the plans, and a contractor runs the job. the contractor might hire out subcontractors who have crews of workers. an inspector checks at some key points to make sure the work is done right.

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

today, we are learning about housing construction in general and angle brackets in particular. angle brackets anchor the roof trusses to the walls, providing structural integrity in case of earthquakes or hurricanes. don't forget these!

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

happy father's day! join me in tuning in extra to today's information!

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

bret victor, magic ink, andy matuschak, tftt, tufte, henrik karlsson, sasha chapin, cate hall, ava huang, paul graham, george orwell, document editing, understanding comics, on directing film, impro, inner game of tennis, HPMOR, rize up sourdough, strauss cookies and cream, brooks adrenaline, warrior II, image stitching, claude -p

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

when you encounter one of those near vertical roads in sf, you've gotta run up it. or power walk up it. otherwise, it wins

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

when making a shake, i wonder: what color will win? the spinach green or the blueberry blue? it's never the banana yellow or the orange orange. or perhaps they will mutually destruct into a sludgy brown

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

@sophemera it's nutritious to do the scaling math in one's head :)

[tommy joseph @babbleprune]

claude now gives me interactive UIs for recipes and i miss the old days of markdown text with normal sized text, proper indentation, and no clutter