discontrol

Here i summarize some ideas collected years ago. I was improving my process of note taking and information management. I wanted to be supported by tools that enabled me to keep track of research and leave my mind free for reflection. I found that many tools i was using tended to affect too much the course of my actions, for instance with advertisement and algorithms.

As most of the content in multiversum, these fragments are not ready for a public. They organise some information for my understanding and for archival.

Stacks

I started from stacking notes in my editor as i was looking for a connection between portable digital and physical algorithms.

Editing the stack of notes i used to repeat some actions. I thought they could be a good starting point for automation and i collected a few patterns, like usability primitives. They did not leave much track in the code because i could not automate fast enough to follow evolution of usage.

I tried using the notes as in a deque. Used as a queue it circled threads for shortest time, used as a stacks it circled them for longest time. Reordering is possible but expensive, so items get popped mostly from the top or the bottom.

The anonymicity of items in a stack is the optimal condition at the moment of storing but the worse at the moment of accessing, retrieving. That’s why many stacks benefit from processing strategies and that’s why it makes sense to have some abstract concepts of the tip of a stack and the heterarchy of priorities. It’s an heterarchy without a common root, leading to the development of multiple paths and multiple new roots.

Since it is difficult to reorder items in a stack, the stack growing algorithm is important. An important part of the algorithm is where to insert new items and were to pick existing ones from for processing.

Pointers

In computer science, a pointer is a programming language object, whose value refers to (or “points to”) another value stored elsewhere in the … memory using its … address. A pointer references a location …, and obtaining the value stored at that location is known as dereferencing the pointer. As an analogy, a page number in a book’s index could be considered a pointer to the corresponding page; dereferencing such a pointer would be done by flipping to the page with the given page number and reading the text found on the indexed page

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointer_(computer_programming)

Keeping pointers, cursors and bookmarks is an important part of managing information. I wanted to have pointers on my stacks, but also to keep pointers to other information like web addresses and emails.

The tip of a first-in, first-out stack is like a mark on moving matter. It is giving us some consistency, but not topic consistency.

When an human is working on such a stack, the tip is the exposed part, which will be read multiple parts by who is using it.

Loading through a memory pass a root taints anything that leads there

It’s the system of recursive amplification that leads to directionality of chaotic systems over time and makes stacks so powerful.

One of the primitives was to lift, that is to move back to the empty part of a tip and center.

I wanted a bookmark like a pointer to a filesystem path.

Grounds

Whichever frame is unsuited to an everchanging ground.

Deepening starts when one is able to move the focus to some ground, which is chaotic.

Growing complexity as a feature of successful grounding.

Some reactions give us a ton of matter out of nothing. For instance when we find an interesting page or we receive mail, that can spawn a list of other elements to be deepened, and we want to keep track of our path from the original document through the derived ones.

The tip of the ground for input, the tip of the roots is for output.

The ground is the place where ideas reach us and become ours. When they hit us they create a branch that has our setting on it and that can keep branching, giving us more options.

Un’idea sul terreno si può radicare o vivere di più.

A ground is easier to analise than a process. One can select specific conditions desired in the setting, for example productivity and comfort. Work for the conditions to be there then detect when they get lost.

Circuits provide control: empty spaces, polished surfaces, threads, routines. Even when delicate and flexible. A ground can be a checkpoint in a routine.

Work as an activity grounded on (regulated by) money making or productivity can be seen as paths to a desirable ground.

Roots

roots is a named pointer that i ported also to paper archives and mobile phones. I was trying to rely on a concept that can be as portable as possible. The roots are a growing structure which is supposed to be suitable to the ground.

Pop in versus pop out frequencies.

A conversation can be seen as shared roots.

Receptive strategies

Rooting was part of a research in methods that were inclusive while keeping a direction. Ways to affect the uncontrolled.

This is better defined in terms of using metrics like the time spent on different tasks. I tried to go beyond metrics while using them. metrics are like doors for goals to be achieved and could eventually be redefined. L’esplorazione di uno spazio che ha più dimensioni di quelle tracciate come una linea che percorre una sfera.

Drifting from a root rather than aiming for a topic.

Over control.

Around rooting i tried other strategies. The main idea behind them was to break free from the main driving direction and leave room for interferences to become new priorities. That can appear as laming or wandering. Another technique was triggering, which can be done in a confusing way by stopping right before a goal.