SOFIA
Do you remember yesterday?ANTIPHON
Barely. I think that I do, but when I begin to speak it comes out blank. And the day before yesterday? Don't bother.SOFIA
So what, do you just forget?ANTIPHON
No, I keep record. I write things down.SOFIA
How can you keep record of everything?ANTIPHON
Not everything. I pick the important things. Like2017-03-15 Grandmother told me about the winter of 1943. She said the river froze.SOFIA
How do you decide what is worth keeping?ANTIPHON
Well, I think about events. An event has a person, a location, a time, a description in prose. If I can find such details, it is worth keeping.SOFIA
And what date is that story, 2017 or 1943?ANTIPHON
Both. There are two stories in each event. There is what happened - the winter, the river, grandmother was there. And there is what is happening when I hear the story.SOFIA
Do you call them happened and happening?ANTIPHON
Act date and say date. Ot host and guest. Imagine a fireplace. Someone is telling a story by the fire. The things that happened to them belong to the host, to the act. But the guest is here, listening to them say, now.SOFIA
That's a lot to keep up with. How can you show it?ANTIPHON
I can write a table.
branch value event granma story actdate 1943 actname granma saydate 2017-03-15 sayname fetsorn prose Grandmother told me ... the river froze SOFIA
And how do you store that writing? That's a lot of paper.ANTIPHON
I teach the computer to understand it. The same event can be written in a way that computer understands{ _: event, event: granma story, actdate: 1943 actname: granma saydate: 2017-03-15 sayname: fetsorn @: Grandmother told me about the winter of 1943. She said the river froze }SOFIA
And where does the computer put this? On some website? In the cloud?ANTIPHON
Sometimes I don't have the Internet, so it has to be clear skies, no cloud. Offline, on my device.SOFIA
So, in some program, like Microsoft Word?ANTIPHON
Programs break. And the story should be useful even when I don't have Word installed. So, plain text, like Notepad. It will work on any computer, even in a hundred years.SOFIA
So you save these lines in a text file. That'd be hard to read, like{ _: event, event: granma story } { _: event, event: uncle's wedding }ANTIPHON
I break each event in pairs: event-actdate, event-saydate. I keep each pair in a file separated by comma. I call them tablets.event-actdate.csv granma story,1943 uncle's wedding,2025 # event-saydate.csv granma story,2017-03-15 uncle's wedding,2025 # event-actname.csv granma story,granma uncle's wedding,uncle # event-sayname.csv granma story,fetsorn uncle's wedding,fetsorn # @/granma story Grandmother told me about the winter of 1943. She said the river froze # @/uncle's wedding Uncle rented out an Italian restaurant for the celebrationSOFIA
And you have these tablets with lots of events in a folder somewhere? How do you find one event, do you just read the files?ANTIPHON
Sometimes I do just read them. To find events for 2025 I open event-actdate.csv, see that one about uncle's wedding, and look at its prose. Other times I use a program that looks at the files for me and finds what I need.SOFIA
And what do you tell the program, "find me an event from 2025"?ANTIPHON
Yeah,
_=event&actdate=2025
or
{ _: event, actdate: 2025 }
The programs finds the event about uncle, gathers details and returns{ _: event, event: uncle's wedding actdate: 2025, actname: uncle, saydate: 2025, sayname: fetsorn, @: Uncle rented out an Italian restaurant for the celebration }SOFIA
And what is this program, where can I buy it?ANTIPHON
It's free, anyone can use it, and even change it, as long as they tell me what they've changed.SOFIA
And what if your program breaks?ANTIPHON
I have a big list of examples, they all work correctly, so it probably works well. And even if it breaks - the tables are text files that I can read.SOFIA
That must have been hard to write such a program. Are you an engineer?ANTIPHON
The program can be very simple - it just reads the tablet and finds the line that you need. One can write more complicated code if they want to make it faster, or to support more interesting queries like "find first two events from March of any year". I am a self-taught engineer, and I document my attempts, so others can learn from my mistakes and try their own hand at writing a better one. One day it will be as fast and as smart as it can be.SOFIA
So you have your program and anyone who reads your events has to use it?ANTIPHON
There is also another way, it looks like a book with buttons.SOFIA
So your program has two modes, one that takes queries and one that opens as a book?ANTIPHON
No, to keep it clean every program should do one thing well. The first program makes the queries, and there is a second one that shows the book.SOFIA
And what does the book show, the computer lines?{ _: event, event: granma story } { _: event, event: uncle's wedding }ANTIPHON
The book shows normal lines, like in the beginning2023-05-17 Granma told me about the winter of 1943. She said the river froze. 2025 Uncle rented out an Italian restaurant for the celebration.SOFIA
And how do you search for one event?ANTIPHON
I can put "2025" in the search bar and it will show me the uncle wedding. I can also edit an event, to change its date for example.SOFIA
And it runs on the phone?ANTIPHON
Mindbook runs inside of event editor, and it runs everywhere - computer, phone, browser. If I install the application, it stores the files on my device. If I open the website, it puts them in the browser memory.SOFIA
Alright, so you write down a bunch of events on your computer. Can you show them to others? Do you send the files over email?ANTIPHON
I can. But it's easier to use version control. It's like giving each group of tablets a passport, so that it can travel around to other people's computers. I call a folder with a passport - a mind.SOFIA
And how do you send that mind around?ANTIPHON
Every computer knows about version control, so I can just give my friend a link and their computer will know how to get my mind and show it as a book. And if they change something, I will see the changes!SOFIA
So you store all events in one mind? What if you want to share only some of the events?ANTIPHON
I have made about fifty minds by now. Every time I want to share some group of events, I create another mind.SOFIA
So what kinds of things do you store there. Memories about yesterday?ANTIPHON
Memories, books, movies, poems, music, letters, plans, family trees - anything really.SOFIA
And how do you keep track of fifty minds? Do you remember them all?ANTIPHON
No, I have a mind that tracks all the other minds. I call it a zoo. It opens in a book just the same. I can say "find me the minds about my ancestors" and it will show the ones about my granma and granpa.SOFIA
So every time a friend wants to look at your poems they have to open the book?ANTIPHON
They can also open the library website that builds from the mind. I call it the garden. It's just a page with some stories, art, music that I want to share. There's hundreds of them.SOFIA
If that website has hundreds of songs and poems, did you add each of them by hand?ANTIPHON
Some. I also have a program that reads all the files on a hard drive, transcribes them into text and adds them to a mind. And another program that takes backups from Telegram or Whatsapp and turns that into a mind too.SOFIA
So when you need to remember something from yesterday you open a mind on your phone and search for it?ANTIPHON
Yeah. I also search for plans I made for this week. Before a concert I look at the lyrics that I want to sing.SOFIA
This sounds useful. Do you use it alone?ANTIPHON
Mostly. Sometimes I give a mind as a gift. When we play roleplaying games, I keep the stories of our adventures in a mind. When a person in my family passes away, I make one in their memory. Other times people ask me to find their ancestors, so I give them a mind with their family history. And then, I live my life with the mindbook, so people use the minds through me.SOFIA
And then they have to remember what you did yesterday.ANTIPHON
Exactly. Some have good enough memory to remember by heart. Others forget and it is fine. The more I work with memory, the more I understand how good it is to forget. Healthy, I think.SOFIA
So do you remember yesterday then?...ANTIPHON
With all that in mind, I do.