This site is a collection of notes written primarily for myself, though with the hope that they may be useful to others as well. After a half-century on this planet, I’ve gathered certain beliefs, convictions, and heuristics that have served me well but that I have not previously tried to put down in writing systematically. Some of the notes are my attempt to do so with the expectation that I will be forced to resolve many contradictions. Others are more prosaic catalogs of various aspects of my life and work.

Design

After some trial and error I came to the conclusion that a wiki (or ‘digital garden’ would be a better fit for my needs than a blog or status feed. Two wikis that have influenced me in the design of this site is the charmingly verbose Gwern.net and the charmingly inscrutable XXIIVV.

Also influential are Andy Matuschak’s Notes and マリウス.

Minimal design that puts the focus on the content appeals to me, and so I avoid any unnecessary ornamentation. The ‘index card’ design is inspired by Tom MacWright’s personal site, which is perfect in its simplicity. It’s a design pattern I first saw in Toby Shorin’s Open Transclude, which we commissioned him to implement in Coin Center’s website in 2020. It seems increasingly popular for wikis.

Backend

All of the content is HTML parsed from Markdown via Anaximander, the script that powers this site. It creates the wiki links and backlinks. A couple of other scripts grab data from Spotify and Instapaper to make the music, podcast, and worth sharing pages.

JavaScript is used sparingly and only for unessential features. The CSS is simple, though I’m not one of these people who wants to make their sites as small as possible. My view is that you should use as much bandwidth as you need but not less. To that end I use the Charter font, which is open source and preinstalled on Macs.

Last updated October 20, 2025