
Metamuse
Tools for thought, product design, and how to have good ideas.
Latest episodes

26 snips
Feb 16, 2023 • 57min
74 // Linking
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.
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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

30 snips
Jan 26, 2023 • 1h 11min
73 // Folk practices with Omar Rizwan
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.
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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”

21 snips
Jan 12, 2023 • 1h 6min
72 // Remote work
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.
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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

33 snips
Dec 27, 2022 • 1h 14min
71 // Programmable ink with James Lindenbaum and Szymon Kaliski
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.
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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

16 snips
Dec 8, 2022 • 1h 11min
70 // Launchers with Thomas Paul Mann
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.
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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

8 snips
Nov 24, 2022 • 1h 4min
69 // Narrative with Mario Gabriele
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.
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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

24 snips
Nov 10, 2022 • 1h 10min
68 // Multiplayer
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.
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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

47 snips
Nov 3, 2022 • 1h 10min
67 // Dynamic documents with Geoffrey Litt and Max Schoening
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.
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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

Oct 13, 2022 • 1h 5min
66 // Business of apps with Markus Müller-Simhofer
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.
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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

Sep 29, 2022 • 1h 11min
65 // Trademarks with Josh Gerben
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.
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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