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Maggie Appleton

Maggie Appleton
Smidgeons Welcome to the smidgeon stream. This is a new kind of content on the Garden. One that was
5 months ago
Maggie Appleton
DeepSeek If you're not distressingly embedded in the torrent of AI news on Twixxer like I reluctantly am, you...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
If you're not distressingly embedded in the torrent of AI news on Twixxer like I reluctantly am, you might not know what DeepSeek is yet. Bless you.
Maggie Appleton
Common Misconceptions in AI Common Misconceptions About the Complexity in Robotics vs AI by Dan Ogawa
5 months ago
Maggie Appleton
March 2025
4 months ago
Maggie Appleton
How to Import Academic Papers from Zotero into Tana How to use Zotero's translator and Tana Paste formatting to easily import papers into Tana
6 months ago
Maggie Appleton
Undetected AI Exam Answers A real-world test of artificial intelligence infiltration of a university examinations system: A...
5 months ago
39
5 months ago
A real-world test of artificial intelligence infiltration of a university examinations system: A “Turing Test” case study by Peter Scarfe, Kelly Watcham, Alasdair Clarke, Etienne Roesch
Maggie Appleton
Unbaited Unbaited by Daniel Petho
5 months ago
Maggie Appleton
Humanity's Last Exam Humanity's Last Exam by Center for AI Safety (CAIS) and Scale AI
4 months ago
Maggie Appleton
ChatGPT Would be a Decent Policy Advisor Revealed: How the UK tech secretary uses ChatGPT for policy advice by Chris Stokel-Walker for the...
3 months ago
Maggie Appleton
Building a Second Brain: The Illustrated Notes Illustrated notes on the Building A Second Brain course
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Faking William Morris, Generative Forgery, and the Erosion of Art History Buying fake William Morris prints on Etsy and other early signs of epistemological collapse
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Growing a Human: The First 30 Weeks Reflections on the strange experience of growing a human from scratch, without any conscious...
6 months ago
32
6 months ago
Reflections on the strange experience of growing a human from scratch, without any conscious understanding of how you are doing it
Maggie Appleton
Statistically, When Will My Baby Be Born? A tiny tool to calculate when your baby might arrive
3 months ago
Maggie Appleton
The Gift Economy Illustrated notes on the idea of Gift Economies and cultural historys of economic exchange
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Digital Gardening for Non-Technical Folks How to build a digital garden without touching code
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Finest Narrative Non-Fiction Essays Narrative essays that I consider ideal models of the medium
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Eponymous Laws of Programming A collection of laws named for specific people in the field of programming
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Making Programming Visual, Spatial, and Learnable What's wrong with linear, static programming mediums and how might we improve them?
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Teenage Skeuomorphic Desktop Designs An archive of my high school desktop designs, circa 2009
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Illustrating Gatsby's Key Concepts Illustrated notes on the key concepts of how Gatsby.js works
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Pattern Languages in Programming and Interface Design Notes on pattern languages and Christopher Alexander's legacy on software programming
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Growing the Evergreens Illustrated notes on the concept of 'Evergreen notes' and how to write them
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Best Illustration Books and Courses My favourite resources for learning to draw and developing your visual thinking skills
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden A newly revived philosophy for publishing personal knowledge on the web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Neologisms A collection of interesting words that have recently been coined
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Spinning Worlds, Seasickness, and Dealing with Vestibular Neuritis Gaining a strange disease and losing my ability to see straight
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
How to Draw Invisible Programming Concepts: Part I A case study showing how I make illustrations for abstract programming concepts
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Brief Introduction to Digital Anthropology A discipline at the intersection of cultural anthropology and binary logic
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Drawing the Invisible: React Explained in Five Visual Metaphors Explaining React through visual metaphors
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Speaking the GraphQL Query Language Illustrated notes on the basics of the GraphQL query language
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
What the Fork is the React Virtual DOM Illustrated notes on how the React virtual DOM works
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Metaphorical Reading Collection A collection of my favourite books on conceptual metaphor theory
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Leaving Elicit Reflections on two years of working at Elicit and why it's time to leave
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Immutable Data with Immer and Personal Assistant Bots Illustrated notes on how work with immutable data in the Immer state library
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Pattern Language of Project Xanadu Project Xanadu as a pattern language, rather than a failed software project
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Positioning Elements & Scrollytelling in CSS Notes on how to use the position property in CSS to make scrollytelling stories
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Douglas, Dirt, and Matter Out of Place Mary Douglas defined dirt as matter out of place – the crossing of boundaries
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Synecdoche: Drawing the Part for the Whole Notes on the metaphorical varieties of synecdoche and metonymy
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Bare Essentials of Greensock Notes on the basics of the Greensock animation llibrary
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
On Opening Essays, Conference Talks, and Jam Jars How to open pieces of narrative non-fiction writing, conference talks, and sticky jars
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
JavaScript's ...spread Operator Illustrated notes on how JavaScript's spread operator works
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Block-Paved Path to Structured Data How block-based interfaces can help us create more structured data on the web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Are Data Unions the Future of Data? Illustrated notes on how data unions work and what problems they might solve
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI An exploration of the problems and possible futures of flooding the web with generative AI content
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Meta-Tour of This Site A video tour through how I build the old version of this site
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Epistemic Disclosure Providing clear metadata on the epistemic validity of content
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Aesthetic Command Lines with Hyper, Spaceship, and Oh My Zsh My fairly banal, basic, but beautiful command line setup
9 months ago
Maggie Appleton
Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers The emerging golden age of home-cooked software, barefoot developers, and why the local-first...
a year ago
16
a year ago
The emerging golden age of home-cooked software, barefoot developers, and why the local-first community should help build it
Maggie Appleton
The Dark Forest and Generative AI Proving you're a human on a web flooded with generative AI content
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Building Custom React Hooks Illustrated notes on building custom React hooks
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Transclusion and Transcopyright Dreams The lost permissioning and copyright system of the Web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Programming Portals Small, scoped areas within a graphical interface that allow users to read and write simple...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Small, scoped areas within a graphical interface that allow users to read and write simple programmes
Maggie Appleton
How Are Compilers & Transpilers Different? Illustrated notes on how compilers and transpilers are different
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Visually Workshopping the AWS Cloud Some insights into how I collaborative with experts to create illustrated notes on technical topics
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Painting Roam Research with Custom CSS How to customise Roam Research with your own CSS themes
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Historical Trails Giving people a visible, useful trail of where they've been over the course of an exploratory...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Giving people a visible, useful trail of where they've been over the course of an exploratory journey
Maggie Appleton
What the Fork is React Suspense? Illustrated notes on how React suspense works
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
What the Fork is Babel? Illustrated notes on how Babel works
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Tools for Thought as Cultural Practices, not Computational Objects On seeing tools for thought through a historical and anthropological lens
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Algorithmic Transparency Algorithms that make their reasoning visible
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Instachatting with Vue & Socket.io Illustrated notes on how to implement web sockets with Vue.js and Socket.io
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Plebeian Programming with Keyboard Maestro How to write macros without touching the terminal
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Frequently Asked Questions Questions I am often asked to answer
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Tools for Thought as Cultural Practices, not Computational Objects On seeing tools for thought through a historical and anthropological lens
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Language Model Sketchbook, or Why I Hate Chatbots Sketchy ideas for interfaces that play with the novel capabilities of language models
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
What App is That? A guide to the apps and tools I use to create illustrations
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Picture Worth a Thousand Programmes Bringing visual explanations and embodied knowledge to programming tools
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Building VR Apps with React360 Illustrated notes on building VR web apps with React360
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Interoperable Personal Libraries and Ad Hoc Reading Groups Exploring ways to build social infrastructure around books and reading on the open web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Folk Interfaces People reappropriating existing software to solve their own unique problems
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
What the Fork is Rust? Illustrated notes on the core concepts in Rust
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Programmable Notes Agent-based note-taking systems that can prompt and facilitate custom workflows
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Tending Evergreen Notes in Roam Research A walkthrough of how I manage and tend Evergreen notes in Roam
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Meet the Robowaiter APIs Serving Us Data Everything you need to know about what API's are and how they work
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Command K Bars Command line bars you can quickly summon with a keyboard shortcut
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Knowledge Hydrant Illustrated notes on the Knowledge Hydrant guide to collaborative learning
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Linear Oppression of Note-taking Apps What we lose when our digital notes remove the freedom to move
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Joining Ought A new role at an AI research lab working on tools for open-ended reasoning
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
How to Become a Neo-Cartesian Cyborg A lightening talk on second brains and cyborg embodiment
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Defend Your Cookies with Essential Web Security Tactics Illustrated notes on the essentials of web security
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Reverse Outlining with Language Models Using language models to generate reverse outlines of writing drafts
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Daily Notes Pages Daily notes as a frictionless default input for personal knowledge management systems
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Fixing Common Git Mistakes Illustrated notes on common mistakes people make in Git, and how to fix them
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Shelfish Starter Guide to Databases The absolute minimum you need to know about data storage
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Computational Notebooks Shareable, browser-based documents that can compile and run code
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Cultural Anthropology of React An anthropological look at the cultural norms of the React community
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Tracking Humanity The introduction to my thesis on the Quantified Self movement and the culture of self-tracking
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Fruitful Guide to JavaScript's Comparison Operators Illustrated notes on how JavaScript's comparison operators work
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
GreenSock Animations with React Hooks How to use the Greensock animation library inside React using React hooks
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Digital Anthropology Reading List A few favourite books from the field of digital anthropology
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Echo & Narcissus Writing Club A Hyperlink Academy writing club where we mimic the work of others
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Assumed Audiences Naming your invisible audiences to free yourself from unspoken obligations
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
New Harvest & Illustrating the Cultivated Meat Podcast Illustrations made for a set of episodes of the Cultivated Meat podcast
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Testing Apps with Cypress Illustrated notes on how to test web apps with Cypress
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The JAMStack, Gatsby & Contentful Illustrated notes on the JAMstack, Gatsby & Contentful
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Why You Own an iPad and Still Can't Draw The failure of drawing materials without mediums and meat
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Empty Pointers and Constellations of AI On the fuzziness of calling things “artificial intelligence” and moving the goalposts
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Dark Forest and the Cozy Web An illustrated diagram exposing the inner layers of the dark and cozy web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
The Art and Craft of Gatsby Themes Illustrated notes on building Gatsby themes
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A History of Cyborgs Notes on the history of cyborgs and why the idea still holds historical weight in Western narratives
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Notes on the history of cyborgs and why the idea still holds historical weight in Western narratives
Maggie Appleton
A Naïve Exploration of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Notes on the academic field of CSCL and major papers in the discipline
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Meat Planet: The Illustrated Notes Visualising the cultural narratives around cultured meat
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
JavaScript Bits You Skipped the First Time Around Illustrated notes on advanced but fundamental topics in JavaScript
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Ambient Co-presence Creating a subtle, peripheral, and synchronous sense of shared space and context on the web
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
What the Fork is xState? Illustrated notes on how to build state machines with the xState library
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Collection of Design Engineers Collecting people I know who work at the intersection of design and engineering, in an attempt to...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Collecting people I know who work at the intersection of design and engineering, in an attempt to figure out what a design engineer is
Maggie Appleton
Gathering Structures How to gather people and create communities in ways that are low-stress and high-payoff
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Spatial Web Browsing Adding spatial affordances to the experience of browsing the web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Squish Meets Structure Designing with Language Models
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Journey into Vue-Router Illustrated notes on how routing works in Vue.js
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Paleolithic Nostalgia Longing for the paleolithic past in the Anthropocene
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Chat with Henry Zhu on OSS & Gift Economies Notes from my podcast episode Open Source and Gift Economies on Maintainers Anonymous
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Silent Synchronous Reading Sessions Notes on how to run silent meetings and reading sessions
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Pink, Soft, Glittering Developers A collection of observations on the rise of soft, sparkly, baby pink aesthetics among developers
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Short History of Bi-Directional Links Seventy years ago we dreamed up links that would allow us to create two-way, contextual...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Seventy years ago we dreamed up links that would allow us to create two-way, contextual conversations. Why don't we use them on the web?
Maggie Appleton
Problematic Proteins How to offend everyone with boundary-crossing steak and nuggets
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Fetishism & Mechanical Keyboards Developer self-expression through coloured switches, keystroke actuation, and LED light displays
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Speculative Calendar Events Designing tentative calendar events to solve complex scheduling problems
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
JSX is a Lovechild Illustrated notes on how JSX in React works
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Organic, Local, Artisan Data Storage Data is currently dislocated – our narratives and metaphors around it try to convince us it is...
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Natureculture, Moral Purity, and Cultural Boundaries Why there is nothing natural about the idea of 'nature'
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
Metaphors We Web By A history of our metaphorical understanding of the web
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
A Fresh Serving of JavaScript ES2019 Illustrated notes on the new language changes in JavaScript ES2019
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
June 2023
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
September 2020
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
September 2023
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
July 2024
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
December 2023
a year ago
Maggie Appleton
August 2021
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
December 2024
7 months ago
Maggie Appleton
July 2022
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
November 2022
over a year ago
Maggie Appleton
October 2021
over a year ago