Seeing an Idea

Essays

When people first encounter Gingko, they either get it immediately, or they balk and say that organizing text in this way would never work.

For the latter, the main complaint is that there is no defined order to be reading in.

Sure, you could say that gingko trees should be read “depth first” (go deeper to the right if you can, before proceeding downwards). In fact, if you are exporting the tree as text or as a slide show, that’s the order you’d get.

But asking what the right order for reading gingko trees is like asking “what should I look at first?” when faced with a painting, a photograph, or anything new in your field of view. Continue reading Seeing an Idea →

Gingko as a Lisp Editor

Features
This is the caption
Gingko’s tree structure is ideal for writing Lisp without having to worry about parentheses. [Click for fullsize]

Internally, I’ve been toying with the idea of using Gingko as a Lisp editor. We’ve already tested exporting a Gingko tree to lisp (with parentheses inserted in the correct places), so the only thing missing is having more than three columns (the current limit).

I believe Gingko is a natural way to write Lisp, for the following reasons:

Continue reading Gingko as a Lisp Editor →

Gingko 1.0

News

Gingko is now out of beta.
We are now Gingko 1.0

It’s been a long road. And as a two-person, self-funded, very-distributed team, we are definitely taking the “road less travelled”.

Since we’ve opened up, we’ve received many new users, and more great feedback and suggestions.

We are excited, and our journey has only just begun.

Hierarchy is the Key to Writing

Essays

[Author’s note: I am aware of that this is a poorly written article on how to write well. However, I struggle with perfectionism. So, contrary to my nature, I posted it instead of refining this forever.]

Unlimited Telepathy

Reading and writing is nothing short of a miracle. Stephen King notes that it’s similar to, but more powerful than telepathy. Marcus Aurelius, last great emperor of Rome, can send images, thoughts and ideas, to me and you, miles and centuries away.

But few writers really understand how this miracle works at the neurological level. And how doing so, can drastically improve their results.

Limitations

Imagine you could only hold 2 things in your mind at any given time. Let’s see what reading the sentence “I went to the station.” would be like:

“I went” (Ok, sometime in the past, I went somewhere)
“went to” (Someone went to somewhere)
“to the” (Something relating to some definite thing)
“the station.” (Something to do with the station).

At no point would you be able to hold the whole idea of “you having gone to the station” in your mind. With a short term memory of 2 items, reading anything longer than two sentences would be impossible.

Things are not much better with a limit of 3 items:
“I went to” (Sometime in the past, I went to somewhere)
“went to the” (Someone went to a definite place.)
“to the station.” (What happened to the station?)

Not much better.

The incredible thing is, we do have a limit like this, and though it’s not 2, it’s not much more than that.
Continue reading Hierarchy is the Key to Writing →

The Uncertainty Principle of Vision

Essays

Core: We need to consciously choose to ignore the present if we want to see the future, or ignore the future to see the present. Trying to do both, leads to not being able to do either. Gingko is the only tool that lets you consciously do both.

I was watching a TED talk on the future of aviation. It’s titled “A 3D printed Jumbo Jet?“. That’s something I wanted to see, but I should have known what kind of talk to expect from the question mark in the title.

The talk basically goes through all manner of hazy thinking about the future of aviation, of manufacturing, etc. The specifics are sparse, and were always based on a mockup rendering, or on vague statements.

None of the technologies specified will be mature enough to implement in something like an airliner within the next 10 years.

I think this talk (and others of the kind), are a great example of what I call the Uncertainty Principle of Vision. The statement is as follows:
Continue reading The Uncertainty Principle of Vision →

The light at the end of the tunnel

News
2013-06-17-19.33.28-Gingko-sapling
Not far from my apartment, a gingko sapling breaks out into the sun.

The gingko prototype has been completely rebuilt. It now rests on solid foundations, and has full real-time collaboration.

It’s been a long difficult path.

Aleksey and I had to learn how to work together across 10 timezones, though we’ve still never met. We had to work through my sleepless weeks following my son’s birth. I had to work on my PhD as well, since it’s so close to completion.

And never once was quitting an option.

Gingko is my life’s work,
and one way or another,
I will make it grow into what it needs to be.

Now, we can look outwards, to you.

Our goal is to make it possible for you
to focus on your life’s work,
whatever that may be.

Upcoming Feature: Real-time collaboration

Features

Aleksey has been working hard on a very challenging, but essential feature: real-time collaboration.

Because Gingko is card-based, we feel that collaborating in real-time with Gingko is far more user-friendly than in “modeless” editors like Google Docs.

If someone else is editing a card, that card is simply locked and greyed out. You are not distracted by your collaborator’s real-time typing, and it doesn’t feel like a giant chat window (remember Google Wave?).

This is a big feature, and I am surprised by the speed with which it’s being developed. [Edit: June 18th. Turns out there were many hidden challenges, now finally overcome.]

We’re still ironing out some minor bugs with it, but it will be ready for use soon.

New Feature: Todo lists

Features

We often use Gingko internally as a shared todo list. It works well, since we can have projects, tasks, and sub-tasks arranged hierarchically.

We’ve been using [ ] to denote empty checkboxes, and [X] for completed tasks. This was not pretty, a bit of a pain, and did not give feeling of satisfaction from completion.

The old way of creating todo lists...
The old way of creating todo lists…
... and the new
… and the new

Well, we now have proper checkbox support. Just add square brackets [ ], and it will render as a checkbox which you can click to toggle. Making a checklist? Pressing enter will automatically create the next checkbox for you.

Exercising the three mental faculties – Part 1: Memory

Uncategorized

I’ve found it useful to divide the mental faculties into three categories: memory, awareness, and imagination.

Doing so has helped me clarify what I need to improve, and how to do so. I’ll talk more about each later, but I thought I’d share some exercises you can try for each faculty.

Today, I’ll share three exercises you can use to improve your memory. Most memory techniques are for helping you remember facts, numbers, objects, or abstract entities (semantic memory). I have yet to find a good exercise for improving episodic memory. If you know of any, please share in the comments.

Continue reading Exercising the three mental faculties – Part 1: Memory →

To wake early, be a werewolf.

Essays

I find it funny that werewolves in the movies always seem to be surprised by the full moon. They go about their lives as normal, and suddenly “Shit, full moon again?!” and they wake up naked in a field somewhere, covered in blood.

I don’t know about you, but if this happened to me once, I would completely restructure my life so that it wouldn’t happen again.

As you’ll see, thinking like a sensible lycanthrope is crucial if you want to wake up early. In fact, you can use this 3-step process to change any habit.

Continue reading To wake early, be a werewolf. →