Metamuse

Mark and Adam take a look back at three years of podcasts to reflect on their favorite episodes—and the friends they made along the way. They discus Metamuse’s origin story, walk through the production process, and wax nostalgic on some of their favorite episodes. Plus: a look at what the future holds for our hosts and the podcast. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes NPR The future of iPad Ferrite Hello Internet, Gastropod, Lexicon Valley This American Life, Gimlet Media Most downloaded episodes: Computers and creativity with Molly Mielke, Sync, Growing ideas with Andy Matuschak Mark’s favorite episodes: Local-first software with Martin Kleppmann, Local-first one year later, Hiring, Cities with Devon Zuegel Adam’s honorable mentions: Progress with Jason Crawford, Rich text with Slim Lim Metamuse podcast guest handbook lossless audio Riverside Audio editor Mark Lamorgese Post-producer Jenna Miller Podcasting Microphones Mega-Review XLR microphone pro sound dampening material RØDE Podcaster Pop filter, plosives John Michael Greer

Bittersweet news is the topic of this episode. Adam Wulf and Adam Wiggins discuss the end of an era for Muse, leadership transitions, and what the future holds for Muse 3.0 and beyond. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes An end, and a beginning Ink & Switch Adam Wulf Loose Leaf Here, File File prosumer Industrial research with Peter van Hardenberg Netlify proxy, Webflow, Hugo Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change

Is virtual reality useful for productivity software? Yiliu is the founder of Softspace, a VR/AR tool for thought. He joins Mark and Adam to discuss the human brain and body as inherently spatial systems; the question of whether information is fundamentally 2D; and why social comfort is the biggest challenge facing VR today. Plus: how to avoid a dystopian future. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Yiliu Shen-Burke @softspaceninja Softspace Wim Hof breathing method Studio Olafur Eliasson The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces Oculus Oculus development kit heads-up display Scott Greenwald’s Media Lab thesis Beat Saber A Beautiful Mind Softspace demo force-directed graph Steven Johnson on DevonThink Google Glass, Magic Leap, Vision Pro Supernatural vergence history of VR PlaneVR: Social Acceptability of Virtual Reality for Aeroplane Passengers

Quotes from famous people or books can turn a feeling or a concept into a memorable chunk of text—how can we do the same for our own ideas? Stephan is the CEO of Obsidian, and he joins Mark and Adam to discuss notes as personal memes, the balance between freedom and cohesion in plugins, and why it's so hard to be messy in digital tools. Plus: why “tools for thought” rubs Stephan the wrong way. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Stephan Ango @kepano @kepano@mastodon.social Obsidian Pillowy Swedish cinnamon rolls using the tangzhong technique Lumi Erica Xu, Shida Li Growing ideas with Andy Matuschak Evergreen notes turn ideas into objects that you can manipulate Apple Notes, Apple Journal Zettelkasten stream-of-consciousness writing plugin Obsidian developer docs Launchers with Thomas Paul Mann Infinite canvases with Steve Ruiz Obsidian Canvas Excalidraw, ExcaliBrain .canvas format

Planning might have a reputation for being boring, but Adam and Mark believe it can be one of the most exciting moments in your team’s work. They discuss the importance of inspiration and collective knowledge; the musical rhythm of planning cycles; and how to “draw the line” when prioritizing. Plus: the importance of revisiting the plan in times of doubt. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Muse for Teams beta announcement Against boring planning agile methodology ticket trackers Gantt charts, burndown charts Pivotal Tracker kanban board Jesper Jørgensen V2MOM, OKRs effort to impact chart Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy Amazon’s “working backwards” approach go slow to go fast Zoom fatigue shared knowledge vs common knowledge

How can software improve the practice of reading? Tristan and Dan are the founders of Readwise. They join Adam to talk about the history of read-later apps like Pocket and Instapaper; the difference between reading for betterment and reading for entertainment; and the cat-and-mouse game of web parsing. Plus: how the personal knowledge management explosion in 2020 affected digital reading. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Tristan Homsi @homsIT Dan Doyon @deadly_onion falconry My Side of the Mountain Readwise Anki Dan and Tristan meeting on Hacker News Reader Pocket, Marco Arment, Instapaper Mozilla acquires Pocket Why We’re Bootstrapping Readwise Alan Kay on computer science as pop culture Readability.js web standards acid test Reader browser extension RSS Explorable Explanations offline first JSON Patch Second Brain commonplace book, marginalia etymology of “document”

It's been a year since Muse 2.0 launched. To help commemorate this anniversary, Adam Wulf once again joins Mark and Adam Wiggins to do a technical deep-dive on Muse's sync architecture. They discuss the benefits such as less ops burden and good developer experience; and challenges such as event vs state based data, handling different app schema versions, and the tradeoffs of a content-aware server. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Developer Duck The Pragmatic Programmer Metamuse episode 56: Sync Muse 2.0 Muse for Teams Local-first software Pingdom Local-first software with Martin Kleppmann Text blocks innovation tokens Replicache, LiveBlocks, PartyKit Automerge 2.0

Twitter has created a whole new generation of internet writers. Francesco is the co-founder of Typefully, and he joins Adam and Mark to talk about the evolution of blogging, the importance of diversifying your platforms, and how Twitter can be used as a beacon to invite like-minded people into your conversations. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Francesco Di Lorenzo @frankdilo Typefully Calm companies with Tyler Tringas Atomic writing Evan Williams and Blogger Mastodon, Medium, Substack Geoffrey Litt Platforms with Joe Wadcan Twitter acquisition So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed Farcaster

Great leadership is imperative to creating a successful company. Adam and Mark talk about setting up a healthy work environment, the importance of conviction and belief, and the role models who inspire Adam and Mark on their own leadership journeys. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Muse for Teams Metamuse episode on Hiring Netflix Culture Deck (2009) Metamuse episode with Mario Gabriele Adam’s Heroku’s values Barbie and Ruth The Score Takes Care of Itself Difficult Men Peter van Hardenberg George Washington The story of VaccinateCA by Patrick McKenzie Sketching User Experiences Slack: The Myth of Total Efficiency The Principles of Project Management Flow Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman High Output Management Management

Better tools and techniques for collective intelligence could be a path to building a more democratic society. Conor is the founder of Roam, and he joins Adam and Mark to discuss his motivations for working on a tool for collective intelligence, why knowledge doesn’t always equal articulated thoughts, and a vision for how to program your own mind. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Conor White-Sullivan Roam Research Bret Victor Andy Matuschak on roman numerals vs arabic numerals Logo, BASIC agent-based economics simulations Choose Your Own Adventure “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them” The Wealth of Networks Institutions and Organizations non-rivalrous goods, public goods 3D printing organs, open-source medicine The Centralized Internet Is Inevitable map-territory conflict micronations critical thinking “I, Pencil” Limits to Legibility Localocracy A Syntopicon Reinventing Discovery

Linking has a rich history as a way of connecting, building, and sharing—creating the hive mind of all human knowledge. Adam and Mark talk about the origins of hyperlinks, the untitled boards problem, and measuring importance by citation or backlink count. And Julia joins to talk about the technical implementation of Muse’s linked cards. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Linked cards Muse for Teams Citations, symlinks, Wiki backlinks content addressable Ted Nelson, coined the term “hyperlink” Knowledge graphs Roam, Notion, Obsidian, Logseq Branching factor Transclusion and excerpting in Muse Splunk, grep command in Unix

Folk practices, such as screenshots of text, offer insight into user preferences and can be a basis for building better software. Omar is the creator of ScreenMatcher, Screenotate, and TabFS. He joins Adam and Mark to discuss the impact of Dynamicland; what it means to create “wiggly” computer systems; and the idea of trying to unlock latent demands of the end-user in order to enhance our ability to control computers. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Omar Rizwan, @rsnous Hijack Your Feed Metamuse episode with Jason Yuan Screenotate Screen Matcher the analog hole Mermaid Metamuse episode with Maggie Appleton Dynamicland A Small Matter of Programming Twine Max Kreminski on Twine projects FFI Vulkan Exterminate All Operating System Abstractions Patrick Dubroy on orthogonal primitives TabFS Dynamicland Geokit work Reactive database relatives: Bloom, Eve, Riffle Displaying graphs in terminal Pixel parsing: Viewpoint, Prefab Buttons Vulkan triangle the charisma of end-user programming “always already programming”

It's been possible to have all-remote teams for at least a decade, but in many ways this approach to knowledge work is still in its infancy. Adam and Mark talk about the pros of remote work like the ability to hire from the global talent pool and life flexibility for team members. They also touch on cons like limited tools for creative group thinking and difficulty building trust remotely. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Muse for Teams / demo video Remote-first Zoom stocks in 2020 Hype cycle curve Messaging with Hilary Maloney Wise, Firstbase, Deel The Legal Implications of Remote Working Cross-Border GitLab’s approach to remote compensation Economic surplus Join the Muse community on Discord Dropbox founder story Wall Street companies back in-person Maker vs. manager schedule

What would be possible if hand-drawn sketches were programmable like spreadsheets? James and Szymon are researching this question at Ink & Switch. They sit down with Adam to talk about the unlikely duo of informality and coding, the future of digital ink, and the role of feelings in research. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes James Lindenbaum Szymon Kaliski Ink & Switch kegging cocktails “there’s always money in the banana stand" Heavybit Inkbase: Programmable Ink Potluck: Dynamic documents as personal software Crosscut: Drawing Dynamic Models Understanding Media Lisp projectional editors, Scratch, MaxMSP Szymon demoing at Strange Loop SketchUp Apparatus, Cuttle ThingLab / demo SAT solver

A command line and a GUI are two completely different ways to operate a computer—but quick launchers and command palettes have found a way to bring them together. Thomas is building Raycast, an extensible quick launcher for macOS. He joins Mark and Adam to discuss the evolution of launchers from Quicksilver to Spotlight to the Chrome address bar; reasons to embed web technologies into a native app; and how voice interfaces like Siri and Alexa fit into this story. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Thomas Paul Mann @thomaspaulmann Raycast Spark AR Raycast API Metamuse episode on platforms Spotlight, iOS Search KDE, Krunner Quicksilver Superhuman, Linear, Notion Arc Siri, Alexa

In the world of tech journalism, a well-crafted narrative is part of conveying truth about the world. Mario writes weekly briefings at The Generalist, and he joins Adam and Mark to discuss his creative process for writing; what Michelin, Stripe, and WeWork have in common; and flaws in the now-popular Silicon Valley narrative of hubris and excess. Plus: how to speedrun creating conviction. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Mario Gabriele The Generalist Telegram: How to Counter-Attack Anduril: The Business of Defense Helium: The Network of Networks Metamuse episode with Dan Shipper Metamuse episode on storytelling Aaron Sorkin – Teaches Screenwriting Whose Story Wins? Y Combinator: The Institute of Innovation Geoff Ralston WeCrashed Softbank: Twilight of an Empire Terra: The Moon Also Rises

The Muse team has begun work on multiplayer features, so Mark and Adam are pondering how groups of people can best co-develop ideas. They discuss the ad-hoc workgroups vs durable teams; the Wisdom of the Crowds; and the implications of local-first on sharing permissions. Plus: TV writer’s rooms. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Group ideation survey for joining the multiplayer Muse alpha program Exhalation, Arrival, Project Hail Mary chalk talk Loom Nikolaus Klein on collaborative creativity Hilary Maloney on creative trust TV writer’s rooms, war rooms Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea The Wisdom of the Crowds Gather Dropbox selective sync

What if we could start with a plaintext note and gradually evolve it into an app? That’s the question asked by Max and Geoffrey in their latest research at Ink & Switch. They join Adam to discuss data detectors, language models and personal text, and the creative process on a research project. Plus: why Stable Diffusion is like a slot machine. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Geoffrey Litt and Max Schoening Ink & Switch An Everlasting Meal The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science previous Metamuse episode with Max Schoening previous Metamuse episode with Geoffrey Litt Potluck essay and live demo GPT3, DALL-E An app can be a home-cooked meal Bonnie Nardi data detectors NSDataDetector variable rewards Metamuse episode with Peter van Hardenberg Formality Considered Harmful Paul Shen, Paul Sonnentag command pallettes “if you’re not embarrassed, you’re shipping too late” GitHub Copilot Cambria

Selling software via the App Store has unique benefits and challenges compared to selling on the web. Markus joins Mark and Adam to talk through the 13-year history of MindNode on Mac, phone, and iPad sold via freemium, paid upgrades, and finally subscriptions. They discuss early inspiring Mac apps like NetNewsWire; the distribution benefits of the App Store; and the emotional journey of transitioning from indie hacker to team leader. Plus: the surprising connection between comic books, infinite canvases, and mind mapping. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Markus Müller-Simhofer Mindnode infinitecanvas.tools by Arun Venkatesan Metamuse episode on infinite canvases Reinventing Comics InfiniteCanvas, an online comic experiment NeXTSTEP iMac G2 Delicious Library 3,, NetNewsWire The Road to MindNode 1.0 “640K ought to be enough for anybody.” AttributedString Vapor framework Rands in Repose on “should engineering managers code?” Apple’s Mac App Store Opens for Business Mindnode and Stage Manager Metamuse episode on brands StoreKit business models in the App Store Things 3

As a product creator, how do you prevent confusion with other similarly-named products in the market? Josh is an intellectual property attorney specializing in trademark law. He joins Mark and Adam to discuss why trademarks exist to protect consumers, not businesses; the legal differences between ™️, ®, wordmark, and logomark; patent trolling and trademark bullying; and the APIs used to monitor trademark databases. Plus: the trademarks of Apple, Monster Energy, and LeBron James. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Josh Gerben (@JoshGerben) Gerben Intellectual Property TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System, or TESS) origin of the name “Google” Lanham Act retainer Metamuse episode on Brand US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) common law right Dove soap, Dove chocolate case law vs statute expert testimonial mutually assured destruction word mark vs logo mark trademark watch service trademark bullying Gerben Trademark Library