Influences & Credits
Almost nothing here is original to us. The way this site teaches — recall cards woven into the prose, interactive explanations, the idea that your understanding should compound over time — comes from a handful of people who thought hard about how minds and tools work together. This page names them.
Our pledge. We implement their mechanisms in our own words and our own code. We don't copy their writing, their notes, or their designs pixel-for-pixel, and we don't claim their work as ours.
Wherever we use one of these ideas, you'll find a small "↳ Influences & credits" note linking back here — and from here, straight to the source. Honestly: the originals are better than anything we'll write. Go read them.
Douglas Engelbart
The whole premise · used: everywhere
The phrase "augmented intelligence" exists because of Engelbart's 1962 framing of augmenting human intellect: tools should raise human capability, not replace the human. That is the thesis of this entire site — AI is simply one of those tools.
Andy Matuschak
Mnemonic medium · evergreen notes · prompt-writing · used: the recall cards, the review queue, our notes practice
Our recall cards — prose interrupted by quick "did this stick?" prompts, scheduled to return just before you'd forget — are our take on the mnemonic medium he pioneered (with Michael Nielsen). The way we think about writing those prompts (one idea, precise, answerable, effortful) follows his prompt-writing guidance. His "Why books don't work" is why we don't just hand you paragraphs and hope. His evergreen notes practice (atomic, concept-oriented, densely linked) guides how we structure ideas.
andymatuschak.org ↗ Why books don't work ↗ How to write good prompts ↗ Evergreen notes ↗
Michael Nielsen
Tools for thought · long-term memory · used: the recall cards, our framing
With Matuschak, Nielsen built Quantum Country and wrote "How can we develop transformative tools for thought?" — the clearest argument we know for designing media that change how you think rather than just what you read. His "Augmenting Long-term Memory" shaped how we treat spaced repetition as a serious tool, not a gimmick.
Quantum Country ↗ Transformative tools for thought ↗ Augmenting Long-term Memory ↗
Bret Victor
Explorable explanations · "show the data" · used: our interactive widgets
Our interactive pieces — like the explorable on Why it's worth your time where ticking off jobs adds up the hours you'd hand back — follow Victor's principle that people understand what they can see and manipulate. "Show the data; make state visible; give immediate feedback." When we add interactivity, it's to earn understanding, never decoration.
worrydream.com ↗ Learnable Programming ↗ Explorable Explanations ↗
Ted Nelson
Hypertext & transclusion · used: the "never lose context" navigation we're building
Nelson imagined documents where following a link never makes you lose your place — ideas shown side by side, in context. That lineage informs the connected, context-keeping navigation we're adding to our notes and lessons.
The science of learning
Retrieval practice · cognitive load · used: why recall cards work, why pages stay calm
Recall cards rest on the retrieval-practice (testing) effect — recalling something strengthens it more than re-reading — established over decades by researchers including Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke. We keep pages uncluttered and reveal detail gradually because of John Sweller's cognitive load theory. We cite the effects, not invented numbers.
Standing on shoulders
If any of this resonates, please support the people above directly — read their work, follow them, back their projects. We're just trying to put their ideas to work for everyday learners. Spotted something we should credit and haven't? Tell us and we'll fix it.