fig. 1—one member, plotted against the work. The dark node is the member; the solid lines run to their nearest neighbors, weighted by similarity. The decimals are the weights. The dashed boundary marks the edge of their neighborhood—k = 6 is where we stop. Beyond it, the field.

A note on what we’re building

Membership is getting a new layer next year. An early version is running now—small, narrow, but it works.

It reads what you’ve read, what you’ve browsed, the places you’ve kept, and sets that against everything we’ve published—stories, objects, guides. Then it points at something just past where you already are. An object you had no reason to find. A place that isn’t in the guide.

The use is simple. Less time looking, more time on what’s worth it.

Right now it handles a fraction of what it should. There’s more written than the system can hold, and the parts that decide what to show you are cruder than I’d like. The archive is young. We feed it by hand—our work first, then references we choose. Nothing crawled.

No two members will see the same thing.

It opens inside membership when it’s ready.

A. Sakae