Highlights from 2024 (Patreon)

Since many of you are new here (hello! thank you!), and since Patreon's navigation is quite cumbersome, I thought I'd gather my big 2024 projects in one place. In roughly descending order of fidelity:

• How Might We Learn?, a vision talk—on making it possible to learn anything by "just diving in", rather than through abstract study segregated from authentic use.

• Latticework, an augmented sensemaking system with Matthew Siu, winner of my first research fellowship. New design ideas for transclusion and backlinks.

• Exorcising us of the Primer, on the deeply tantalizing vision of Neal Stephenson's Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, why our field must move beyond it, and what that could look like. I've been trying to understand this well enough to write this essay for many years—very gratifying.

• What does spatial computing want to become? The Vision Pro was released in February. I spent the month building many prototypes, then wrote this essay about the medium and hosted a workshop on it with Gray Crawford.

• And two large new projects well underway:

  • A new programmable attention system with Taylor Rogalski, focused on supporting questions, insights, yearnings, and possibilities that don't fit on a to-do list.

  • A highlighter that generates spaced repetition prompts with Ozzie Kirkby, a first step towards replacing flashcards with a more dynamic primitive in memory systems.

I'm in the airport now, returning from a reflective and energizing retreat. I hope 2025 is beginning beautifully for you all!