Fractals

But over the past decade, Boston has fallen ill with a grave case of the Architecture of Right Now. Featureless glass — or even worse, plastic-cladded — high-rises in a minimalist or deconstructive style have been steadily replacing or crowding out beloved older buildings. As the new structures, which overwhelmingly lack traditional architectural elements or ornamentation, ooze across more of what used to be a defiantly unique cityscape, the overall effect is like that of being conquered by especially tasteless barbarians.

• fractal software makes it hard to orient yourself, since everything looks the same regardless of the "depth" level - which is a feature of fractals
• Gordon Brander suggests looking into how orientation works in cities – through landmarks – how could this look like in software?
  • for some reason I'm not using the color tags in macOS, which could be helpful? – or is this too small of a landmark to matter?
• bash prompt, miller columns, urls, breadcrumbs are all a way to show "you are here" in fractal structures

• Notion, Roam, Muse, file systems feel "fractal":
  • blocks within blocks in Notion
  • boards within boards in Muse
  • bullet points within bullet points Roam
  • folders within folders in file system
• hash-maps are also fractal
• Figma is not fractal - tabs, canvases and layers are all different things, and can't be nested ad infinitum
• fractal tools seem to give more freedom, but at a cost - how to Orient Myself in these possibly infinite structures

One of my greatest pleasures at work is trying to find that point where everything feels just right. Nothing more, nothing less, but right there in the pocket.

It's almost fractal. It's there in every component, in every feature, in every flow, in every sequence, in every product, in every decision, inside everything across the company.

How do you know when it's just right? It's the same feeling you get when you try to balance something physical.

You know it. You put something on something else and try to find that center of gravity... A bit to the right, oops too much. Lean back to the left... Steady... Steady... Ugh, too much push. Stack it up again, find that center... Wobble, bobble, almost... And then it locks in. Da! There it is.

All the sudden the pushing and pulling forces disappear and it's just there, on its own. Still, in harmony and equanimity. That's what just right feels like.