Andy Matuschak+

buff.ly/FitVmLG

buff.ly/FitVmLG

lol at grandpatech

lol at grandpatech

Thanks to @rmo.bsky.social and Henry Zhu for thermal printer inspo!

Thanks to @rmo.bsky.social and Henry Zhu for thermal printer inspo!

Vibe-coded design jigs really hit different in physical computing. Something ext

Vibe-coded design jigs really hit different in physical computing. Something extra magical about so casually wiring up a bunch of enigmatic OEM hardware, controlling it from an improvised UI, producing tactile traces of fiddling with dozens of sliders…

Made a Printer Friend which quickly transcribes speech onto little slips of pape

Made a Printer Friend which quickly transcribes speech onto little slips of paper. Very nice for card sorts, quickly capturing open loops, discursive notes in books, etc. The speed of thermal printers and their auto-cutters is so satisfying! And dedicated mechanical key! Mm!

Yes, but I like being able to use lots of different colors, pen types (highlight

Yes, but I like being able to use lots of different colors, pen types (highlighters, brushes, etc)!

Extends naturally to "if I write a comment like 'Is there more recent work?' and

Extends naturally to "if I write a comment like 'Is there more recent work?' and circle it in purple, send the comment with surrounding context to an agent"

✍️ Playing with programmable highlighters, e.g. * green highlight on a citation

✍️ Playing with programmable highlighters, e.g. * green highlight on a citation -> finds and prints the cited paper * orange highlight on a claim -> prints a skeptical fact-check

I have tried many of these tools, but none yet produce very robust understanding

I have tried many of these tools, but none yet produce very robust understanding of a complex change for me, even though I am an experienced engineer. But I expect these will improve…

It's ironic (and troubling?) that with AI, that long-sought individual autonomy

It's ironic (and troubling?) that with AI, that long-sought individual autonomy might be achieved without any of the understanding or expertise, and in fact by making the black box much bigger and blacker.

In computing, that's often interpreted as a quest to spread liberatory understan

In computing, that's often interpreted as a quest to spread liberatory understanding: everyone should be able to create and mold software; and/or programming should be made accessible to all. End the dependence on centrally-produced commercial software, etc.

Reflecting on Illich's recent centenary: he wanted "tools for conviviality" whic

Reflecting on Illich's recent centenary: he wanted "tools for conviviality" which prioritized individual/local autonomy and situated improvisation over centrally controlled technology which could only be modified by professional elites.

These are fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing

These are fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing

I'd love to see a photo of one of your "lab notebooks" if you're willing to shar

I'd love to see a photo of one of your "lab notebooks" if you're willing to share!

Oh, the element-wise interaction is a nice accelerator!

Oh, the element-wise interaction is a nice accelerator!

Oh, no, that's very interesting! The closest I've experienced is this intense Sh

Oh, no, that's very interesting! The closest I've experienced is this intense Sherlock board game. Each session of play is one mystery, but you keep all the clues and ephemera from session to session, and new sessions can depend on insights from old sessions' materials.

Full res image: andymatuschak.org/files/Creati... Original paper: arxiv.org/abs

Full res image: andymatuschak.org/files/Creati... Original paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.04308 by @blue-phia.bsky.social, Sarah Abowitz, Yijun Liu, Sarah Sterman, @sh1m.bsky.social, @maxkreminski.bsky.social. My favorite HCI paper of the year!

Marginalia feel too subordinate to the text's structure. A separate precis feels

Marginalia feel too subordinate to the text's structure. A separate precis feels too decontextualized. I want to see the whole without leaving the parts behind. And a material I can work with over time, as my interpretation evolves. Ideally it can somehow represent my aesthetic experience.

I want weirder representations of "readings"—the trace/artifact produced by a re

I want weirder representations of "readings"—the trace/artifact produced by a reader's interaction with text(s). Here playing with a cut-up "poster-ification". Cumbersome in many ways, but interesting.

One thing I've long found really fascinating about games, specifically, is how t

One thing I've long found really fascinating about games, specifically, is how they're usually specified by a combination of procedure (untap, upkeep, draw…) *and* rules (if this card is in play, skip the upkeep phase…). That interplay seems really relevant to interfaces and, I think, underexplored.

Oh, totally, and I'm not complaining in the least about the flood of great stuff

Oh, totally, and I'm not complaining in the least about the flood of great stuff! I'd be particularly excited to learn more about the hierarchical behavior extension cards/toolkits shown at youtu.be/4UxGijnuXEs?.... Have been thinking a lot about those topics (andymatuschak.org/tat/#composa...)

* position your cursor and press Return twice to split the transcript, so you ca

* position your cursor and press Return twice to split the transcript, so you can interleave normal Markdown

With these transcripts, you can: * hold Command and click anywhere in the transc

With these transcripts, you can: * hold Command and click anywhere in the transcript to start playing the audio file from there * delete regions like ordinary text; audio playback will skip those segments * copy and paste regions like ordinary text, preserving playback support

Made an Obsidian plugin that turns audio files into interactive editable transcr

Made an Obsidian plugin that turns audio files into interactive editable transcripts embedded within ordinary Markdown documents. 🔈✏️ buff.ly/iZEVkpm

So funny you mention—that's exactly what I was trying today!

So funny you mention—that's exactly what I was trying today!

* Some very wild demos of UI composition that I definitely don't understand! * A

* Some very wild demos of UI composition that I definitely don't understand! * All versioned, branchable, local-first, import/exportable, offline syncable, etc Watching this feels like watching a lot of dreams (Smalltalk, Webstrates…) playing out live. Just beautiful stuff.

* Same data, bidirectionally editable in different representations via lenses! (

* Same data, bidirectionally editable in different representations via lenses! (!!!) * All in a composable hierarchy which itself can be molded! * Demos of a hierarchical composable behavior system that I don't yet understand!

Outstanding new work on a composable and collaborative malleable computing envir

Outstanding new work on a composable and collaborative malleable computing environment from @inkandswitch.com!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxG... * Same data, collaboratively edited in different tools! * Same tools, themselves collaboratively edited! (cont)

I don't understand it well enough, either. I wish I did! You've got me writing a

I don't understand it well enough, either. I wish I did! You've got me writing about it, trying to understand better. And yes, the workflow you describe with margin.at is totally doable!

Elaborates some earlier work by Nakai et al [1] and Mazzei et al [2]. [1] buff.l

Elaborates some earlier work by Nakai et al [1] and Mazzei et al [2]. [1] buff.ly/KQN3aZC [2] buff.ly/K91uDjB

It's stimulating (and very cool that it's possible), but I think it's conceptual

It's stimulating (and very cool that it's possible), but I think it's conceptually wrong. Encourages a "write-only" stance: no good way here yet to continue "working with" this markup in context. Will keep noodling.

Been tinkering with annotation "fusion": annotate a paper with ink; take a photo

Been tinkering with annotation "fusion": annotate a paper with ink; take a photo; markup is segmented, turned into structured data, and re-super-imposed on the clean original PDF.

Yes! The Leica app supports background transfer of low-res copies over BTLE. So

Yes! The Leica app supports background transfer of low-res copies over BTLE. So I added another app that runs a background activity watching the album for new photos. It transmits them over BTLE to the Instax.

Also great, in this particular case: connecting two proprietary devices that def

Also great, in this particular case: connecting two proprietary devices that definitely don't want you messing with them, or to talk to each other. Adversarial malleability.

Or: between $10 ESP32s/XTEINKs/etc and coding agents, Weiser's ubiquitous comput

Or: between $10 ESP32s/XTEINKs/etc and coding agents, Weiser's ubiquitous computing dream starts to look both more appealing and more tractable.

This was made possible by coding agents, of course, and it represents a role for

This was made possible by coding agents, of course, and it represents a role for them that I really like: enabling a world of many small, focused, connected, improvisatory, personalized devices—rather than a single slippery abstracted Everything Machine.

Inspired by Polaroid type 55, which produces both a print you can give to your s

Inspired by Polaroid type 55, which produces both a print you can give to your subject and also a negative you can develop. It can feel extractive taking photos of people (esp strangers), much nicer to give them something on the spot.

Rigged my camera to automatically produce instant prints, via phone (locked in p

Rigged my camera to automatically produce instant prints, via phone (locked in pocket) as BTLE client. Also has a mode where it only prints when I "star" a photo in the camera's playback interface. So I basically get a "print" button directly on the camera.

Love this book!

Love this book!

One element I'm really liking so far is a big dedicated writing/reading desk wit

One element I'm really liking so far is a big dedicated writing/reading desk with no computer. Putting up a big 8'x6' pin-up wall next.

What are your favorite unusual elements of your studio/study/office? Drown me in

What are your favorite unusual elements of your studio/study/office? Drown me in inspo please! I'm renting a little space for myself as an experiment: never had a creative space of my own, always a shared office or tiny corner of a shared bedroom. Excited to see what it does to my practice.

Extremely luxurious to go to the library, make a beeline for the oversize shelve

Extremely luxurious to go to the library, make a beeline for the oversize shelves, and wallow in endless gorgeous, impractical books

Fantastic!!

Fantastic!!

Thanks, Orta!!

Thanks, Orta!!

Mesmerized by Dennis Hlynsky's overlapped timelapses of starlings, crows, fish…h

Mesmerized by Dennis Hlynsky's overlapped timelapses of starlings, crows, fish…https://vimeo.com/dennishlynsky/videos/sort:plays/format:thumbnail

My handwriting is 35wpm, which seems awfully slow (I type at 130wpm), but of cou

My handwriting is 35wpm, which seems awfully slow (I type at 130wpm), but of course, wpm is not at all my bottleneck when writing-to-think! 35wpm is still 2100 words per hour, and I probably average more like 300-500 words per hour when drafting…

I guess when I type I'm like one of those doofuses who drives a sports car in a

I guess when I type I'm like one of those doofuses who drives a sports car in a city, like: green light, pedal to the floor, accelerate over 300 ft then brake hard for the next light, wait… such a jerky experience!

Weird advantage of writing by hnad: because it's so slow, I experience stuckness

Weird advantage of writing by hnad: because it's so slow, I experience stuckness less. Before I reach the end of a sentence, l've had lots of time to think about the next one. When typing I often hit a period, then stop dead, which makes the sometimes aversive not-knowing feeling way more overt.

One caveat for the linked video: buff.ly/UZRs9Sv

One caveat for the linked video: buff.ly/UZRs9Sv

I think this is a big gap in software design culture. There's lots of commentary

I think this is a big gap in software design culture. There's lots of commentary on visual design and micro-interaction, but remarkably little explicating conceptual and structural design. This section from Magic Ink is lodged in my mind. buff.ly/Bl9JwTv

Very excited about Interface Studies by @mskayyali.com—videos explicating and di

Very excited about Interface Studies by @mskayyali.com—videos explicating and discussing ideas and problems in user interface design. buff.ly/laz8yko (via @kevinlynagh.com—thanks!!)

Ahhh man this is so cool

Ahhh man this is so cool

Thanks, Matt!

Thanks, Matt!

Unfortunately in my domain (mobile interface with heavy gestures and animation)

Unfortunately in my domain (mobile interface with heavy gestures and animation) that's not yet tractable, even with lots of homegrown scaffolds and probes. But things will probably look very different in a year. I'm curious if others have found happy middle ground between these poles?

The ideal, maybe, is something like what @simonlast outlines in buff.ly/QFn54GV:

The ideal, maybe, is something like what @simonlast outlines in buff.ly/QFn54GV: teams of agents making technical plans, reviewing each others' work, autonomously and adversarially testing, etc. You still get robust "technical oversight"—just by other agents.

It sucks and I hate it. I'm moving faster, but the work is unpleasant and unrewa

It sucks and I hate it. I'm moving faster, but the work is unpleasant and unrewarding. It seems awfully hard to exert *partial* technical control—much easier to exert ~full or ~none.

This leads to 10-30min cycles, which lead to parallelism (to avoid busy-waiting)

This leads to 10-30min cycles, which lead to parallelism (to avoid busy-waiting), which leads to context-switching and fragmentation, which leads to working memory churn and poor comprehension, which leads to situations where neither the agents nor I understand what's going on.

Like many, I've been trying to make some middle ground work: trying to delegate

Like many, I've been trying to make some middle ground work: trying to delegate more than the first camp, while giving the work more focus and technical oversight than the second. My role is planning, technical guidance, and code review.

Of friends who use coding agents heavily, the happiest seem to fall into two cam

Of friends who use coding agents heavily, the happiest seem to fall into two camps: a) Controlled: 1-2min cycles, no context switching, still in control of the code, using the agent "to type faster" b) Delegated: Vibed in the background, while something else (eg design) is their primary focus

Delightful interactive tour through dozens of tiny muscle-memory-and-flow-promot

Delightful interactive tour through dozens of tiny muscle-memory-and-flow-promoting interface details: aresluna.org/show-your-ha...

Interestingly, Sparkle already sort of has a "title bar mode", but it needs some

Interestingly, Sparkle already sort of has a "title bar mode", but it needs some careful design attention. It's an interesting challenge, really, to think about how that affordance should be presented in the myriad macOS titlebar/toolbar configurations…

I’ve fantasized for years about submitting a PR to add something like this (and

I’ve fantasized for years about submitting a PR to add something like this (and eventually change the default!), but keep getting wrapped up in other projects.

People often ask me how it feels to see it used everywhere, and I always say: an

People often ask me how it feels to see it used everywhere, and I always say: annoying and embarrassing! Those update modals interrupt me exactly when I'm trying to use the app.

I created Sparkle a lifetime ago, when I was seventeen. Then I moved onto other

I created Sparkle a lifetime ago, when I was seventeen. Then I moved onto other things, and kind maintainers dutifully kept that original intrusive modal UI going for two decades. (!!)

Could I possibly nerd-snipe anyone into polishing something like this non-modal

Could I possibly nerd-snipe anyone into polishing something like this non-modal update flow into an official UI for Sparkle? weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2026/04/28/u...

Great answer!

Great answer!

Fun related concept is "auteurial time density"—how many hours/years of *one per

Fun related concept is "auteurial time density"—how many hours/years of *one person's* idiosyncratic creative perspective is represented here? Gaudi, Welles, Klint, Caro, etc

Not fully reliable ofc—doesn't capture the awe in jazz, plein-air painting, etc.

Not fully reliable ofc—doesn't capture the awe in jazz, plein-air painting, etc. But I think the absence of creative time density says something about what's missing in slop. At least in improv arts there's expertise density, which is a different kind of time density.

Thinking about "creative time density": how many person-hrs/yrs went into this s

Thinking about "creative time density": how many person-hrs/yrs went into this specific artifact/place/experience? It's a reliable awe trigger for me. Performers spending 100s of hours prepping a few minutes of material for a show, a scholar spending a decade on a book, a Ghibli film, cathedrals.

Yes, that's a great point. It's funny: by comparison, I really don't mind readin

Yes, that's a great point. It's funny: by comparison, I really don't mind reading amateur/unskilled writing! Reminds me of this point: nooneshappy.com/article/appe...

(excerpts from buff.ly/vaXHjb1, which title I can endorse only as a joke)

(excerpts from buff.ly/vaXHjb1, which title I can endorse only as a joke)

A distressingly high % of the prose I see online is now AI-generated. It feels l

A distressingly high % of the prose I see online is now AI-generated. It feels like I'm playing a coordination game in which a rising fraction of the world is defecting? Then there's also a sense of insult—like, "did you think I wouldn't notice?" And: "wait, do others not notice?" It's not subtle!

Intense vertigo thinking about @nanr.bsky.social's numbers. Based on current ple

Intense vertigo thinking about @nanr.bsky.social's numbers. Based on current pledges/valuations, AI philanthropic giving would saturate an additional 300+ Arc Institutes, i.e. an extra 80K employees. Or 5,000 Institutes for Progress demanding 200K employees! nanransohoff.substack.com/p/the-third-...

FWIW, I was somewhat disappointed with my visit there a few years ago. A lot of

FWIW, I was somewhat disappointed with my visit there a few years ago. A lot of very meticulous platings, but flavor-wise I didn’t find the compositions striking or memorable.

I wondered that, too—seems like retail shops have historically used brighter lig

I wondered that, too—seems like retail shops have historically used brighter lights (halogen prior to LED?). That is, they're actually meant for use during daytime, to reinforce the existing outdoor light in large spaces.

The options do seem dizzying! I wonder: why are there more options for LEDs than

The options do seem dizzying! I wonder: why are there more options for LEDs than there were for CFLs? Why is it more likely to confuse commercial buyers?

CFL -> LED transition? AIUI, LEDs are naturally cool and need an extra phosphor

CFL -> LED transition? AIUI, LEDs are naturally cool and need an extra phosphor to warm them up. But it's not like warmer LEDs are way more expensive.

Trying to form a theory for the widespread rise of daylight-blue and mismatched

Trying to form a theory for the widespread rise of daylight-blue and mismatched color-temp bulbs in commercial lodging. Feels like more than half the time I travel now, even at nice hotels, I flip a switch, yelp at the light, turn it back off again. That was less common 5+ years ago. Why?

HCI folkS: I'll be in Barcelona this Thu-Sun for CHI. Ping me if you'd like to h

HCI folkS: I'll be in Barcelona this Thu-Sun for CHI. Ping me if you'd like to hang!

I think an accidental tyranny of programmers has held back invention in user int

I think an accidental tyranny of programmers has held back invention in user interfaces. I want weird, courageous, idiosyncratic, alien. I share early reports of how coding agents are changing that, and what it might mean for people and institutions inventing interfaces today.

But malleability isn't enough. Novel interfaces take imaginative design, deep do

But malleability isn't enough. Novel interfaces take imaginative design, deep domain insight, and fluent programming. Few have all three skills, but programming can produce working software on its own—so interface invention culture is dominated by programmers.