The local-first computing movement arose as a corrective to cloud dependence. Keep your data on your device, work offline, own your data and your software. All good things.

Sometimes quantity has a quality all its own.

Two different philosophies for building systems with large capabilities.

Unix was an operating system created at Bell Labs in the late 60s and early 70s.

A scene is a social-cultural formation around some shared interest/practice/aesthetic.

Unix was a scene .

The Unix file and the intermodal container both represent format-agnostic, standardized interfaces that enabled revolutionary levels of interoperability.

A design provocation is a prompt that stimulates you to explore novel areas of solution space. A good one will lead to solutions better than those previously known.

Software engineers often prefer programmatic interfaces because they offer greater control.

Though programmatic interfaces are generally more powerful than GUIs, they also have a steeper learning curve. They do not present a welcoming visual metaphor and menu of affordances. The user has to come pre-supplied with a mental model and sense of what's possible. That's why GUIs have been so popular.

Two ways to interface with software:

Disruption is defined in retrospect: disruptive innovations are those that disrupted.

Composability is a phenomenon with a scope.

Notion is a marvel. It feels powerful because it is. You can drag a database into a page, turn a list into a Kanban board, and link everything together. It feels like building.

Unix is the nearest common ancestor of modern computing.

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix at Bell Labs in 1969. They built it on a foundation of radical simplicity: small tools that do one thing well, composability, and text as the universal interface.

There are two kinds of privacy in software: privacy by policy, and privacy by architecture.

Unix today is a trademark. Historically it was an operating system from AT&T's Bell Labs (1969), then a family of operating systems descended from the original AT&T Unix. Now, to legally call your OS "Unix", you need trademark certification from The Open Group.

Obsidian is around the state of the art of a philosophy of software and what it could be.

"Sovereign" comes from Vulgar Latin *superanus , meaning "chief, principal."

Learning to program used to be like learning to play the saxophone.

In 1962, computers were widely viewed as calculation engines—tools for automation. Douglas Engelbart viewed them as tools to increase human capability in the face of complex problems.