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_journals/2024-05-16_1129.md

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       ---

     

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       title: May 16th, 2024

     

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       date: 2024-05-16, 11:29:01 -07:00

     

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       section: journal

     

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       link: https://subconscious.substack.com/p/subconscious-is-winding-down

     

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       tags:

     

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         - Subconscious

     

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         - AI

     

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         - toolsforthought

     

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       ---

     

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       The [[Subconscious]] team is announcing that they're [shutting down](https://subconscious.substack.com/p/subconscious-is-winding-down). The very short version from [[Gordon Brander]] "Today, if you want to amplify intelligence, you probably wouldn’t build a decentralized notes graph, you would go to work on personal AI."

     

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       Having just gone through this with Fission, I feel for Gordon and cdata and the whole team. Thank you for striving, for your writings, and for the wonderful community you built in your Discord.

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_notes/Community Search Engines.md

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       * Digital spaces, such as a Discord server

     

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       These are often communities of interest, but can also considered to be trust relationships: if you are connected to a group of people you may extend trust to other recommendations they make. 

     

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       ## Summer of Protocols

     

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       I have applied to the [[Summer of Protocols]] with [[walkah]], see the [RFC in the forum](https://forum.summerofprotocols.com/t/pig-community-search-engines-event-chat-artifacts-as-research-building-block/879).

     

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       ## Reading 

     

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       [[Dark Forest and Cozy Web]]

     

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       [[The Brazilianization of the Internet]]: forming communities, which can be considered a kind of commons, do exclude or make [[cozyweb]] spaces. Does this cause a kind of elitism, and/or further deteriorate public spaces?

     

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       [[How Algolia uses Electron to improve internal productivity]]: I’m still inspired by this description of Algolia implementing company wide search across internal tools, with desktop integration. This should be a tool for organizations of all kinds.

     

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       ## Tools

     

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       [[Lieu]] is an example of some code that helps build community search engines and webrings.

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       * Digital spaces, such as a Discord server

     

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       These are often communities of interest, but can also considered to be trust relationships: if you are connected to a group of people you may extend trust to other recommendations they make. 

     

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       ## Reading 

     

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       [[Dark Forest and Cozy Web]]: communities are moving to cozy web spaces, and/or have need for members only content. The open internet has degraded search incentivized by click throughs to show ads, and commercial social platforms

     

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       [[The Brazilianization of the Internet]]: forming communities, which can be considered a kind of commons, do exclude or make [[cozyweb]] spaces. Does this cause a kind of elitism, and/or further deteriorate public spaces?

     

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       [[How Algolia uses Electron to improve internal productivity]]: I’m still inspired by this description of Algolia implementing company wide search across internal tools, with desktop integration. This should be a tool for organizations of all kinds.

     

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       ## Local

     

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       [[Proto Apps]]

     

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       [[Open Social Protocols]]

     

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       ## Tools

     

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       [[Lieu]] is an example of some code that helps build community search engines and webrings.

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_notes/Directus.md

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       ---

     

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       tags:

     

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         - headlessCMS

     

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         - baas

     

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         - BSL

     

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         - backend

     

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         - saas

     

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       link: https://directus.io/

     

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       github: https://github.com/directus/directus

     

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       ---

     

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       Directus is an instant REST+GraphQL API and intuitive no-code data collaboration app for any SQL database.[^githubreadme]

     

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       Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content.

     

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       - **Open Source.** No artificial limitations, vendor lock-in, or hidden paywalls.

     

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       - **REST & GraphQL API.** Instantly layers a blazingly fast Node.js API on top of any SQL database.

     

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       - **Manage Pure SQL.** Works with new or existing SQL databases, no migration required.

     

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       - **Choose your Database.** Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, OracleDB, CockroachDB, MariaDB, and MS-SQL.

     

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       - **On-Prem or Cloud.** Run locally, install on-premises, or use our [self-service Cloud service](https://directus.io/pricing).

     

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       - **Completely Extensible.** Built to white-label, it is easy to customize our modular platform.

     

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       - **A Modern Dashboard.** Our no-code Vue.js app is safe and intuitive for non-technical users, no training required.

     

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       [^githubreadme]: This top part is all from the Github README

     

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       ## Licensing

     

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       [[BSL]] licensed. 

     

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       >  Commercial license only required for entities over $5 million in total finances

     

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       ## Pricing

     

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       Cloud version is $129/monthly or $99/month if billed annually. Database, "asset size", API requests, and bandwidth are metered.

     

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       Non-profit / open source discount:

     

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       > Yes, we do! Being open source ourselves, we're aware of how important it is to support open-source maintainers. If you are the maintainer of an open-source project (see policy below), contact us to discuss available discounts.

     

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       > 

     

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       > our Directus Cloud owner account email must match a GitHub account that is the primary maintainer of an open source repository and must have existed for at least 6 months and/or have 100 stars.

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_notes/Grist Labs.md

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---

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link: https://www.getgrist.com/

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tags:

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- organization

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- NYC

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- software

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---

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Grist Labs is a software company. We care about software because it matters inordinately for today’s world — for productivity, communication, decision-making, human progress, and life pursuits.

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## Pricing

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Makers of [[Grist]], they run a SaaS cloud service.

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The free-forever plan:

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- Unlimited number of documents.

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- Up to 5,000 records per document.

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- Snapshot history goes back 30 days.

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- 100 AI Formula Assistant credits (one time)

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[Paid team pricing](https://www.getgrist.com/pricing/) starts at $8/user/month

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## About

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Below included from their very inspiring [About page](https://www.getgrist.com/about/)

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### Our software principles

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1. Software should be _for_ the people: to enable and serve them, not limit and control.

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2. The security and privacy of software users are fundamental. They must not be for sale or treated as optional.

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3. Free and open source software provides the basic foundation of trust in embodying the above values.

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4. Quality of software is important, including functionality, reliability, usability, and performance.

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### Who we are

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Grist Labs was founded in 2014 and has been self-funded ever since.

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The company was started by brothers Dmitry and Stan Sagalovskiy. Dmitry previously co-founded Hudson River Trading in 2002 (a high-frequency trading firm, which still exists and is going strong), and New York Math Circle in 2008 (an educational non-profit, which still exists and is going strong).

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In 2017, Paul Fitzpatrick joined Grist Labs as CTO. Paul co-founded Data Commons Cooperative in 2012 (a co-op of over 30 member organizations, which still exists and is going strong). He brought his own passion for democratic flows of data, and experience as the creator and maintainer of multiple popular open source data tools.

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Grist Labs was founded shortly after mass surveillance disclosures exposed the vulnerability of even the most respected cloud services. The best remedy we knew was open source code, transparent security practices, and enabling users to use their own infrastructure.

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Grist was originally envisioned as installable software with end-to-end encrypted sharing – software that users can trust. Users would have full control of data, and would not need to trust the cloud. A SaaS service, however, is simpler for users, easier to start with, and easier to share with others. That’s what we released.

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Since then, we’ve open-sourced Grist and made it possible to run a Grist instance on your own infrastructure. We’ve been working on making Grist run everywhere. A version of Grist can now run on the desktop of every major OS.

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The original vision of “software users can trust” has grown into the vision and values described on this page.

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Grist Labs is headquartered in New York City, with a distributed team that spans half the globe: from Canada to South Africa, and from California to Poland. (Our users span the rest of the globe!) Read more about [our team](https://www.getgrist.com/our-team/).

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_notes/Grist.md

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       ---

     

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       tags:

     

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         - opensource

     

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         - app

     

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         - spreadsheet

     

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       github: https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core/

     

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       ---

     

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       Open source, Apache licensed cloud spreadsheet. Not quite an Airtable clone, but similar capabilities. Some of the layout and linking makes it feel like Filemaker.

     

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       > Grist is a modern relational spreadsheet. It combines the flexibility of a spreadsheet with the robustness of a database.

     

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       Grist is a hybrid database/spreadsheet, meaning that:

     

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       - Columns work like they do in databases: they are named, and they hold one kind of data.

     

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       - Columns can be filled by formula, spreadsheet-style, with automatic updates when referenced cells change.

     

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       There is a [user-created packaging of Grist](https://git.cloudron.io/walski/grist-app) for [[Cloudron]].

     

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       ## Grist essentials

     

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       1. **Relational database** that’s easy to create and use by non-technical people.

     

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       2. **Data/view** separation, for app-like functionality, easy to set up and use by non-technical people.

     

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       3. Sharing and **access controls** that allow users to address complex real-world access requirements.

     

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       4. **Open source**, for transparency and trust in the software’s promises, and freedom for technical users to improve it. [Read more](https://www.getgrist.com/blog/grist-a-hacker-friendly-spreadsheet/) on this.

     

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       5. Options to run **self-managed**, or on the desktop; reliance on a service provider is optional.

     

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       6. Support for spreadsheet-like **formulas**, to extend use cases and empower users.

     

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       7. Extensibility via **APIs** and other integration points.

     

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       8. Data is **portable**, allowing lossless export in a well-supported format, and common export/import options.

     

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       9. Comprehensive **documentation** and learning materials.

     

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       10. **High quality** implementation, well-tested, with a focus on reliability and performance.

     

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       ## Grist Labs

     

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       From Github README:

     

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       > The `grist-core` repo is the heart of Grist, including the hosted services offered by [Grist Labs](https://getgrist.com/), an NYC-based company 🇺🇸 and Grist's main developer. The French government agency [ANCT Données et Territoires](https://donnees.incubateur.anct.gouv.fr/toolbox/grist) 🇫🇷 has also made significant contributions to the codebase.

     

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       I've captured more on the [[Grist Labs]] -- a very inspiring team / company. They

     

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_notes/Headless CMS.md

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       draft: "true"

     

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       tags:

     

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         - CMS

     

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         - baas

     

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         - backend

     

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       ---

     

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       Headless CMS or other data-first builder for information / API building.

     

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       Interested especially for events, where you want to model some of these elements:

     

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       * Events

     

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       * Talks

     

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       * Rooms

     

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       * Locations

     

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       * Venues

     

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       * Sponsors

     

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       * Speakers

     

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       * Attendees

     

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       ## [[Directus]]

     

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       Available on [[Cloudron]]

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_notes/SoP 2024 Application.md

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       ---

     

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       link: https://forum.summerofprotocols.com/t/pig-community-search-engines-event-chat-artifacts-as-research-building-block/879

     

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       tags:

     

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         - sop24

     

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       ---

     

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       I applied to the Summer of Protocols 2024 program with this RFC plus a private personal submission that [[walkah]] and I sent in. It was not accepted. I now call this [[Community Search Engines]].

     

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       # Community Search Engines: Event & Chat Artifacts as Research Building Block

     

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       ## Team member names

     

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       * [Boris Mann](https://bmann.ca)

     

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       * [James Walker](https://walkah.net/)

     

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       The protocol of in-person conferences, symposium proceeedings, and other classic gatherings are at best stuck in a published PDF or slide deck world. If you're lucky, event websites have permalinks that remain year over year, and maybe a youtube playlist or two.

     

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       And, we have yet to develop a protocol that better supports digital communities, hybrid events, unconferences, and other emerging forms.

     

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       We propose a Community Search Engine Protocol for events & digital communities.

     

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       ### Short summary of your improvement idea

     

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       Events, Cozy Web digital groups, and other gatherings are all flow, no stock. Every group should have access to easy tools to gather community context.

     

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       Part community search engine with high relevance resources from people you have trust with, part serendipitious discovery from webring surfing.

     

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       In the age of AI, leaning into a trusted community context can further help to elevate signal from noise.

     

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       ### What is the existing target protocol you are hoping to improve or enhance?

     

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       Today's events, from meetups to traditional full conferences, at best use a static snapshot of an event websitem, slides, and speaker bios. If the event has enough funding ($1000s of dollars), there are high quality video recordings, and maybe some attempt is made at transcripts.

     

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       For [Open Space Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_space_technology) / unconference techniques, images of sticky notes and personal write ups, and perhaps professional facilitation summaries or live graphic facilitation could be part of the artifacts.

     

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       ### What is the core idea or insight about potential improvement you want to pursue?

     

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       Digital gardens with valuable backlinks are stuck in single-player mode or commercial platforms. Chat communities, especially those on commercial platforms, are constantly losing context, or their entire archives. An easy toolkit for communities to gather context, resources, and new insights that can grow over time. Community Search in a box.

     

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       ### What is your discovery methodology for investigating the current state of the target protocol?

     

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       We've run events and communities of this form for years. We will look to find other pains and problems by interviewing other community leaders and recruiting early testers.

     

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       ### In what form will you prototype your improvement idea?

     

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       We will produce a toolchain of code and configuration as well as test installs of a community search engine.

     

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       Some of the building blocks we will look to use as starting points:

     

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       * [Lieu](https://github.com/cblgh/lieu) an existing open source community search engine

     

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       * The [Noosphere](https://subconscious.network/) tool-for-thought protocol

     

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       * Social feeds of community participants from Bluesky, ActivityPub, and Farcaster as a source of new resources

     

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       * RSS feeds that are aggregated and synced p2p as local resources for each person using IPFS -- both as distributed archive and way to include ongoing content over time

     

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       ### How will you field-test your improvement idea?

     

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       **Causal Islands Toronto 2023:** [Causal Islands](https://causalislands.com) as a traditional centrally organized multi-day conference. The current archive, including high quality. It has spawned a Discord and Podcast and desire for more "Causal Islands" style events, including one "community edition" in LA. Participants have said they'd like to see more of these events, as well as better find a home for computational research / future of computing topics embodied by the original conference. 

     

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       Can we turn a conference into a community, and facilitate a template for future events?

     

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       We will start by using the 2023 event outputs, including inviting attendees of that event to add their personal resources, in creating a community search engine.

     

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       **The Discord formerly known as Fission:** Fission the company is shutting down, but the community Discord continues. Chat is notoriously bad at capturing long term context, and Discord as a commercial platform is not a good long term home.

     

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       We will explore extracting links and people into a community search engine.

     

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       This approach should be expandable to other Discord-based communities.

     

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       ---

     

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       This approach may also be interesting for the SoP community itself.

     

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       We will look to recruit other communities to try out the process, including beta testing if technical people can effectively configure and deploy the tooling on their own, as well as differing approaches to activating the communities themselves.

     

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       ### Who will be able to judge the quality of your output? Ideally name a few suitable judges.

     

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       * Gordon Brander

     

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       * Ronen Tamari

     

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       All of these might also be collaborators. Ideally communities and people who try and install / deploy this will be those who can help judge if it's helpful

     

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       ### How will you publish and evangelize your improvement idea?

     

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       We will publish a repo containing the community search engine, configuration, and deployment guidelines to get up and running.

     

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       We will create an onboarding and community activation checklist to help communities be successful. 

     

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       We will find seed communities to deploy into, and host introductions and kick off events both virtually and in person.

     

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       ### What is the success vision for your idea?

     

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       Communities of interest that form around events, digital places like chat groups, and other gatherings have an easy way to deploy a community search engine that provides both archival as well as ongoing high context trusted resources over time.