Log (rss)

Today, Andrea and I designed the Concepts page. Looking around at other personal wikis, our shared sentiment was that there is a lot of amazing content, but that it can be hard to navigate because of the overwhelming amount of information served in a rather flat layout.

By using a hierarchical structure, we are able to better break it down into sub-categories that are easier to navigate. The top has:

• Concepts
• Media
• Travel

And under them there is a subcategory and finally the topic. Each log entry uses a tag underneath, so we are still able to display the same log entry in multiple topics, if necessary.

To design the layout, Andrea and I started to look for inspiration. I am rather infatuated by the old lisp machines, and especially the Genera Symbolics lisp.

I love the portrait aspect ratio and the black and white look. So, I wanted the design to make an homage to its beauty.

Searching for its design elements, we came across this.

Andrea and I both find it beautiful. If you head over to the Concepts section, you can see how that served as inspiration for the design. We are very happy with the result.

- Marc

Comma Directory tries to set up a way to separate "the facts" from the interpretation of the facts. The idea is to build up a set of log entries that over time can be projected to display a unique interpretation of a given concept.

Originally inspired by event-sourced programming, this idea also has a certain resemblance to the zettelkasten method. In zettelkasten, you build up a set of atomic notes, that you then piece together to construct a novel idea.

This process allows us to improve our understanding of our own thoughts and make sure that important ideas are grounded in a solid foundation. And if we get it wrong, we are able to reinterpret the information, without losing the raw source.

- Marc

When ChatGPT 3 came out, I was initially terrified how it might make my job irrelevant and all creative professions along with it.

Now I have had time to let that fear simmer for a bit, and I have changed my mind. These days, when I think about AI, I come to think about how irrelevant it is to the major problems I face. For the problems I try to solve, AI feels, at best, like a tool that can take care of some chores, and at worst, exploitative and actively harmful.

My current project is to help people live more sustainably. From that perspective, AI is an ecological disaster. At the same time, I think the way that AI removes our need to think,actively harms our public institutions. The more software I build, the more I understand the importance of understanding how things work, from the hardware to the software, in order to be able to fix it myself when something breaks. In that sense, I am skeptical of the way AI encourages us to just copy-paste without knowing what we are doing. It is like stackoverflow, but on steroids.

When I find out a picture is AI generated, I cannot help but to feel that it is about as interesting as a stock photo to me, and that makes me think that it will not be replacing art anytime soon.

These days, I feel a relief that AI actually does not help me in what I try to achieve, my initial anxiety is gone. Instead, I feel more pressure to make sure that my projects succeed so I do not end up in an organization where I am forced to use AI tools.

- Marc

I've been interested lately by the energy usage of software.

Since my current energy usage is invisible to me, it is hard to actually grasp just how bad the situation is. But I often am amazed at how inefficient many solutions are, they offer very little gain.

For example, to ensure that a service is always available, at my old job we had 3+ servers running in parallel, just in case one server hall gets hit by a tornado or other disasters.

Most services do not even need 99.99+% availability, they'd be fine with just two of those nines. Maybe that's what we should strive for instead?

Anyways, if we want to understand how we can do better, it is good to understand the energy footprint right now.

After some investigation I came by websitecarbon.com, which is extremely easy to use and gives some rough estimations. It estimates the cost of:

• Data transfer over the wire
• Energy intensity of web data
• Energy source used by the data centre
• Carbon intensity of electricity
• Website traffic

It links to Sustainable web design: Estimating digital emissions which I will need to take a closer look at.

I also asked a Permacomputing groupif they had any recommendations. Almost immediately I was recommended a few tools for measuring energy usage:

• watt-wiser
• scaphandre
• kepler

Excited to dive deeper into these resources and see how I can better understand and optimize.

- Marc

I listened to a podcast recently, the Corercusive episode on the birth of Unix with Brian Kirnighan. An interesting point made during the talk was that software development today is more about looking up information rather than building something with your own intuition. You search the answer for each query, a.k.a. stackoverflow-driven development.

I have started valuing more the software that does not require that, where you can read the manual and then understand how to use the programming language.

- Marc

I read an interesting article on local-first software. I think it perfectly summarizes the issue with cloud software and the need for more offline-friendly software.

I am happy the authors mentioned Git, as it is a prime example of successful offline-friendly collaboration. Github of course ruins it slightly by having PRs be done online.

I was a bit sad, though, that the article did not mention the dvcs fossil, which contains chat and forums built-in that auto-sync when you go online. It is also extremely easy to self-host.

In conversations about local-first, I often find email and/or activitypub to be underrated as well. Email is offline friendly, I have it synced offline. I also think you could extend it to have apps on top of it, like a todo list app. Activitypub could be used to push the envelope even further, as it is a system to stream activities. You could have those activities be signed locally and sent when you go online.

- Marc

Comma.directory will be built over time by composing together many small log entries. Each log entry contains observations, events, and thoughts that we label.These log entries will be the building blocks for a directory of concepts, which we will categorize for easier navigation.

When entering the page of a concept through the directory, the log entries that led up to the idea would show up and and, if the idea feels more fully explored, it might also contain a summary or conclusion.

- Marc