A library of procedural knowledge
lof (pronounced lōf) is a research project built around the goal of capturing and working with procedural knowledge. This is my (stand-in) site to share the work that comes from this project. This rendition and a future one is a home for the artifacts of my research—projects, papers, essays, and the occasional experiment. This is a site to house what comes out of this project.
I'm mostly mentored by David Spivak at the Topos Institute and joining the South Park Commons to explore all of this more. I was tasked with identifying what problems I cared about. For a long time, I sat with "what-ifs"—it seemed impossible to prioritize when the world was changing very fast. However, I think codified knowledge is what we'll wish we'd preserved if civilization managed to collapse; it will also be the key to helping the world flourish. That is, we can build our future by efficiently building on insight instead of aimlessly making the same mistakes. Furthermore, in a generative world where words are cheap, it will be up to us to conserve what is precious.
That said, I'm interested in data management, systems, and version control. Here's my main site.
This site is a little experiment in itself—to capture the process as well as the product. An attempt to preserve not only what I work on, but how I work—and to invite others to do the same. What should the modern library contain? What structures does it need? And how might we better understand, document, and share the context that underlies our collective knowledge?
More concretely: